


I Realized. Then I Couldn't Stop Realizing.

by Pinnithin



Category: Mission to Zyxx (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, PTSD, Pleck Decksetter is ace no i will not be taking questions at this time, Slow Burn, arguably enemies to friends to lovers, idk how computers or machinery works and it shows, kind of, pleck sad boy hours, sometimes a family is an omnigendered space being on a sentient spaceship with their sons, standoffish coworkers to friends to lovers, who are a forklift a clone and a cyclops in a bathrobe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:02:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24540508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pinnithin/pseuds/Pinnithin
Summary: Things have been slow and morale is flagging on the Bargarian Jade. C-53 does some self reflection in this downtime and has an epiphany about one of his coworkers. How long has this been going on? What's he going to do about it, now that he knows? Takes place after Season 4 Episode 11.
Relationships: C-53/Pleck Decksetter
Comments: 27
Kudos: 48





	1. C-53

C-53’s processing had changed since O4K TR33 edited his code. It was more neural, now. Elastic. Where before he was required to create pathways and subroutines to draw connections between different functions, those connections now drew themselves over and over with repetition and time. Sometimes it was incredibly useful. Other times, it was incredibly painful.

This was organic thinking, less controlled. He always liked a little chaos, but C-53 wasn’t sure if he was a fan of this.

Things had been quiet aboard the Bargarian Jade lately. The Allwheat’s manifestation scattering the galaxy and Seesu Gundu’s campaign spinning its wheels left less direction for the crew and, subsequently, more downtime. C-53 had yet to figure out if it was his loader frame’s active energy or his own boredom that was making him so antsy.

Sure, he kept himself busy. There was plenty to do between helping watch Horsehat, corralling AJ, and talking through plans with the Captain. And yes, he did do the occasional unnecessary lifting of a heavy object - that compulsion was hard to keep in check, another side effect of his altered processing. His tolerance for ship life had nonetheless flagged, and he found himself wishing he hadn’t blown Bargie’s entire stash of hyper proton fuel a couple weeks back.

Today, he loitered in the common area, one of the few places his frame fit comfortably now that his cube was occupying a piece of heavy machinery. He hadn’t seen the inside of his charging closet in weeks and was beginning to miss the close comfort of its pressing walls, a small, dark escape when his processing threatened to overwhelm him.

Maybe that was why Pleck had been spending so much time in his own closet. The tellurian had made himself scarce in the previous weeks, slinking out at odd hours to grab food, speaking little, and disappearing quickly. The crew had since given up asking him why he was isolating himself - he always responded with the same excuse of continuing his meditation - and resigned to keeping a concerned but patient eye on him.

C-53 found himself a little more than concerned as he sat in a companionable quiet with the refrigerator. He still retained a few of his medical subroutines from The Midnight Shadow, and he knew depression when he saw it. The guy had been through a lot - they all had - and now Pleck was dealing with the repercussions in the most un-Pleck-like fashion: in silence. Solitude.

The droid recalled the day he met Pleck, how he marveled at the man’s ability to keep up a running stream of naive commentary, and how C-53 had prayed to every Rodd out there that he would one day shut up. Now, with only the hum of the refrigerator keeping him company, C-53 realized he missed the tellurian’s upbeat conversation. In Pleck’s ignorance, at least, he said things that kept their lives interesting.

The clomping footsteps that echoed down the hall heralded the arrival of the captain, whose eyes lit on him the instant they ducked in through the door. C-53 anticipated the question before it was spoken - he had been sought out for counsel plenty of times by now.

“Hey, C, are you busy?” they asked, fidgeting. Fidgeting didn’t look good on Dar - the subtle movement seemed out of place on the captain’s usually powerful and confident frame.

“No, Captain Dar, I’m free,” he responded, straightening up. It was only polite. “What’s on your mind?”

Some of the anxiety on Dar’s face cleared at his words. “So, I’ve gotten through a few more chapters of _Captaining and You_ , and I’ve reached the part about morale, and, well, I’m curious.” They trundled forward to settle onto the couch, its springs creaking under their weight. “How would you say morale is on the ship right now?”

Before C-53’s vocal modulator could fire up a response, Bargie chimed in with a resounding, “Low. Very low.”

Dar glanced up at the ceiling. “You always say that though, Barge.”

C-53 shook his head. “No, I would agree, things have been… rather tense, especially since our encounter with Timmis and our subsequent trip to Biktar.”

That mission had been particularly frustrating in a way C-53 couldn’t quite place. He’d never been self-conscious before, especially not in the presence of sentient plant beings.

Dar nodded. “That’s what I was afraid of. Okay,” they stood abruptly and began to pace, vibrating the panels of the floor with every step. “So we need to raise morale. This campaign needs energy! Team building! Heart!” They stabbed a finger in the air for emphasis, talking to themself as much as they were to C-53.

C-53’s scanners followed Dar’s pacing passively. He appreciated their enthusiasm for their leadership role, despite the pressure it placed on them - it was good to see that they cared about something.

“Give me ideas,” Dar exclaimed, gesturing as they paced.

Bargie spoke up again. “Don’t you guys usually get a call from Ber- Berkit. Uh. Bernit? Hermit.”

Dar’s pace slowed. “Things with Nermut have been, ah,” they paused to search for words. “...strained. So if we don’t have a mission I haven’t been contacting him.”

“Am I to assume that if we do have a mission he will contact us?” C-53 asked.

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure.” They stalled, catching up with their own thoughts. A phenomenon C-53 was steadily growing familiar with, himself. “Anyway!” They continued to pace. “What else can we do? Here on the ship. Gotta raise that morale!”

“A party,” Bargie blurted. Her voice took on a more wistful tone. “I haven’t been to a good party since last Dependent’s Day. What I wouldn’t give for some of that sweet cherry gas right now.”

“We were sort of just at a party, Bargie,” C-53 reasoned. “At the moon on Biktar.”

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize that parties the crew went to count for the ship who wasn’t even there.” The ship snarked.

“Also, that wasn’t really a party,” Dar pointed out. “It was mostly a bunch of plants hazing us. We didn’t even get drunk.”

“Okay, yeah,” C-53 said, reconsidering. “It seemed like only AJ was having a good time at that one.”

Dar paused their pacing again to look at the ceiling and address Bargie. A very organic thing to do - Bargie was all around them, but because her speakers were overhead, the other crew members tended to focus their attention upward when talking to her. C-53 was fond of the quirk, even though it was unnecessary.

“That sounds like a great idea, Barge,” Dar said. “We haven’t gotten to relax and cut loose in a while. This could be really fun.” They slapped a fist into their open palm, eyes alight as the plan unfolded in their mind. “Yes, let’s have a party. A _mandatory_ party. Captain’s orders.”

“Will you need help planning this party, Captain?” C-53 asked mildly. If he and Bargie could be in charge of drinks, maybe he could get his pincers on some more hyper proton fuel.

Dar was already stomping out of the room, propelled by inspiration. “Yes! No. I’ll let you know, thanks C!”

The droid settled back into a slump in the silence that followed. “You really think a party will help?” he asked.

Bargie gave one of her signature heavy sighs. “I dunno, I just wanna get jucked up,” she said. “It’s been weird though. Usually I’m the one bumming you guys out, not the other way around.”

“It has been weird,” C-53 agreed.

“I mean, even Pleck is sad,” Bargie went on. “Which, y’know, at first it was a relief, but now it’s just depressing. Maybe this will cheer him up a little.”

“Maybe.” C-53 was relieved to hear that he was not the only one who missed the tellurian’s plucky energy around the ship. If even Bargie was concerned, something was clearly wrong. He would have to make a point of checking on him once the party rolled around.

That is, if he was sober enough to remember to ask.


	2. Pleck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's emo Pleck hours, lads

Pleck Decksetter wasn’t a liar. He really was meditating when he shut himself inside his room all day. Perhaps those meditations weren’t always on the Space, and perhaps he wasn’t always entirely conscious while he was doing it (his sleeping average had racked up to 14 hours a day), but he  _ was _ meditating. He found that he was less susceptible to the Allwheat’s influence when he was repeating phrases over and over, focusing his mind on the mantras instead of letting his thoughts wander to darker places. 

He had started with motivational words, things that would encourage him as he pounded them into his head syllable by syllable. This had rapidly devolved into just blurting whatever he could come up with - nonsense phrases, recipes he remembered, random lines from a stray TheyTeen magazine - anything to blot out the fuzz on the edge of his consciousness. If he was asleep or otherwise mentally occupied, the maddening blend of Beano and the Emperor stayed relatively quiet.

When Dar showed up at his door announcing a mandatory party to raise morale, he felt a swoop of panic in his stomach. It wasn’t that he was avoiding the crew. In fact, he missed them terribly, but he’d had enough episodes in front of them by now to want to keep some distance. He couldn’t forget the looks on their faces when he snapped - uneasy, awkward, mistrustful. As someone who prided himself on being authentic, it made him prefer the company of his closet walls over experiencing that anymore.

“Is it really mandatory?” Pleck asked, staring up at his captain as they towered over him.

“Yes,” Dar said, crossing their arms. “Mandatory party. Mandatory fun. You have to go, Pleck.”

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Dar, I don’t know. How long do I have to be there?”

The talons on Dar’s chest twitched with mild irritation. “Until I say so. I haven’t seen your face in days. We’re all feeling pretty shitty after our last mission, so tonight we’re all going to have fun. That’s an order.”

“Saying ‘that’s an order’ really only works on AJ, Captain.”

Dar clamped a heavy hand onto Pleck’s shoulder, dwarfing him instantly. They applied some small pressure, and he felt their claws lightly press into him, a warning. “You wanna play this game right now, little man?” they asked lowly.

Pleck shook his head, shrugging out of their grip. “No. No, I’ll go. Just… don’t expect me to stick around for long, okay?”

But Dar was having none of it, and they stabbed a threatening claw in his direction. “You’ll stay and you’ll have fun. We are gonna raise morale on this ship, hear me?”

Pleck opened his mouth to argue, but Dar was already turning away from him. “Okay,” he sighed. He watched them clomp down the hall in the direction of AJ’s room, resignation settling heavy on his shoulders. Sure, he would go. Sure, he would stay. Have fun? He hadn’t had fun in so long he wasn’t even sure he remembered what it felt like. 

As the evening approached, Pleck tried to make himself look at least somewhat self-contained. He combed through his hair, long enough now to reach past his shoulders, and tied it out of his face. He found his eye patch and secured it over his blind eye - the ruined socket tended to be a little off-putting, and he felt off-putting enough already in his current mental state. He pulled on a shirt and a pair of pants that at least smelled clean and secured his robe over the outfit. 

Pleck had been living in that robe constantly. It was ratty and coming apart at the seams, but he couldn’t bring himself to part with it. When he wore it, he felt that he still had some sense of purpose, and he clung to that purpose with desperate hands as he tied the sash around his waist. 

He stood in the doorway of his little closet-room, searching inside himself for any sense of excitement for the upcoming party. Growing up back home, he wasn’t ever invited to any parties. Most of the time he and his underage friends had just driven out to the middle of a grass field, drinking and shooting the shit until the farmer caught them. It should feel good to have friends who wanted him to be at a party, right? But he was coming up empty.

Nothing out of the ordinary as of late. He heaved a sigh, rolled his neck, and ventured out into the ship.

He was the last one to arrive, and he found the common area rearranged to better suit a gathering of the whole crew in one place. Bargie was already rattling the room with a heavy bassline that he could feel in his chest and the lights were dimmed. The couches had been shoved into a semicircle against one wall, allowing an area of open floor. Dar had squeezed themself behind the counter, stashing it with drinks to make it into a bar while AJ hovered nearby, calling dibs on any empty cans he could crush. 

Even Horsehat was there, toddling around and reaching for the streamers that fluttered as they hung from the ceiling. Pleck was already dwarfed by the being whose appearance was identical to Dar’s. He smiled at the thought of involving them fully with the crew’s missions once they were more cognitively developed.

The heavy thump of Bargie’s club music rattled his teeth. This was good; loud, continual noises were pretty effective at blocking the voice that hung out in his head. His eye skipped over the rest of the room and landed on the square frame of his best friend, sitting next to one of the couches and keeping a close watch on Horsehat. Pleck raised a hand to wave at C-53, and once the droid spotted him, he lifted a heavy claw in return.

Maybe tonight wouldn’t be so bad, after all.

He went to settle onto the couch next to C-53, leaving Dar to lasso the turbulent AJ on their own. He had to lean in close and raise his voice to be heard, but he didn’t mind the proximity.

“Wow, you guys really went all out,” Pleck commented. “I thought we were just going to sit around and drink and talk.”

C-53’s scanners turned in his direction. “Yeah, well, we figured it would be nice to have some reprieve after… y'know.” His machinery whirred as he gestured vaguely. “All of it. Everything.”

Everything was right. Lately it felt like the universe was against them, the stakes higher, their failures heavier. It had never bothered Pleck that much to do poorly on a mission when they had first started working together, but now he preferred to not even try over risking the consequences of their inevitable screw-ups. His shoulders slumped. He needed a drink already.

C-53 noticed his melancholy. “You know we’re all worried about you, right?” he asked. 

Pleck waved him off. “Yeah, I know, you’re worried I’m going crazy,” he acknowledged. “Well I’m not going to lose it tonight, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Nobody thinks you’re crazy, Pleck,” C-53 began.

“You guys shoved me in a bureau drawer when I started talking to myself,” he responded. His tone was good-natured, but there was a bitter edge buried in it.

The droid beside him said nothing, surveying him in silence. This frame didn’t emote as well as some of his previous ones, so Pleck could have no idea what was going on in his cube. Finally, C-53 rose from his seated position, forcing Pleck to crane his neck to maintain eye contact. 

“I’m gonna get you something to drink,” he said. “What do you want? An orange beer?”

Pleck flushed, the question unexpected. “Uh, sure, I’ll take one.”

“Alright.” 

Pleck watched his friend shift toward the newly converted bar, crossing the room in only a few steps. There had been dozens of times he had imagined the droid offering to get him a drink in varying contexts, all discarded as ridiculous on account of C-53’s disinterest in organic consumables. This, however, was essentially an offer to “have a beer and maybe you’ll calm down a little,” which was not exactly the scenario he preferred.

His feelings for C-53 were complicated. They had gone through a lot together in the past two years, and Pleck had watched the droid’s personality gradually grow into a really special individual once his restraining bolt had been destroyed. Pleck was also painfully aware of his own development as a tellurian, and the intimate knowledge C-53 held about the kind of person he was. Who he used to be. Who he was becoming. 

Still, he felt drawn to him. Which was silly if he gave too much thought to it. Pleck was just a blip on the radar of a droid who’d occupied hundreds of frames and lived dozens of tellurian lifetimes. Plus, he was, well. Him. Pleck Decksetter. Tellurian Disaster. 

“You’re staring off into space,” came a voice beside him. 

C-53 had returned, holding a bottle delicately between his clamps. Pleck took it gratefully, marveling at the fact that the same guy who busted the refrigerator could handle glass with such care. “Yeah, well,” he said, cracking it open. “That’s what being a Zima knight’s all about.”

“Uh huh,” C-53 responded, settling back down to sit beside him. Across the room, Dar was trying to explain to AJ that he should, in fact, not break an empty glass bottle over his helmet, making a swipe for him while the clone danced out of the way. “Pleck, do you ever think that maybe you’ve been getting a little _too_ invested in the Space lately? You’ve been… gone a lot.”

“What are you talking about? I’m right here on the ship.”

The droid stared at him again, blank-faced in his loader frame while the bass pulsed around them. “The only reason you’re here right now is because Dar forced you to come.”

Pleck changed the subject. “Are you drinking tonight? High power? Low power?” He wasn’t exactly sure about the specifics of droids altering their states of consciousness, but he remembered C-53 ordering power at a bar before. At any rate, he’d take the droid’s stern chastisement for his ignorance over having to lie to his best friend any day.

C-53 considered him for a moment longer before following the conversation turn. “Bargie and I agreed to land somewhere later and do a little dust together. After Horsehat goes to bed.”

“Responsible.”

“Captain Dar would probably not be able to relax if Bargie was flying the crew on dust,” the droid reasoned. 

“Yeah, they’ve been pretty stressed out.” Pleck watched Dar as they bodily hoisted AJ into the air, turning him upside down and shaking the bottle forcibly out of his grip. He stifled a chuckle. “It was a good idea to have this.” 

“I am glad you think so.”

Hearing the fondness in C-53’s vocal modulator made warmth spread through Pleck’s chest. They were friends, good friends, and Pleck remembered how much he missed him when he locked himself away. He took a drink and stood, worried he would blurt something stupid if he lingered for too long.

“I’m gonna go help with AJ,” he said. “Thanks for the beer.”

C-53 inclined his chin in his direction. “Thank you for the company. And Pleck?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m always here for you if you need to talk about anything. I’m serious.”

Pleck ached with all the things he wanted to talk about. But he just offered a congenial smile and a mild “thanks, buddy,” before turning away.


	3. C-53

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> C-53 has a Realization

Depending on where he looked, it had begun that night.

Dar’s party plan ended up being a success, save for a few minor snags and broken bottles. AJ had a delightful time being tossed back and forth between Dar and Horsehat until the latter got drowsy and had to be put to bed. C-53 caught Pleck’s amused grin from across the room as he watched the action, elastic and amiable, and it struck him how long it had been since he’d seen the tellurian smile. 

Now, they were stretched out on a hill in the countryside of a grassy nearby planet. AJ and Horsehat were snoozing peacefully a short ways off, while the rest of the crew settled into a comfortable buzz. It felt good to be able to stretch out his limbs in the cool evening; so much of his time on the ship was spent cramped into a corner so as to not take up too much space. Dar was sprawled beside him, and Pleck lay with his arms tucked behind his head between the two.

The suns in the distance were setting, purple and hazy. C-53 luxuriated in the strange calm electricity pumping through his system, relaxing in this rare pocket of quiet they had found in the turbulent galaxy. 

“So, what’s the verdict?” Dar asked finally, their voice syrupy with alcohol. “How’s morale? Good? Better?”

“Definitely better than it was, Dar, thank you for organizing all this,” C-53 responded. Putting sentences in order was fun in this state - the dust accelerated his processors in a way that pulled random threads of his consciousness to the surface and pieced them together in interesting ways. 

“Yeah, Dar, I think everyone had a good time tonight,” Pleck yawned. “Thank you for forcing me to go against my will.” There was a laugh in his voice, and it was pleasant to C-53’s audio sensors. 

“Anytime, you big mopey baby,” Dar purred. “Barge? You having a good time?”

“Doing way better now that my vents are full of dust,” Bargie hummed from where she was parked on the hillside. “This was long overdue. We should do this every week - no! Every day.”

“Well, that would get incredibly expensive after a while,” C-53 reasoned.

“Yeah, I just wish Nermut coulda been here, yknow?” Pleck piped up again. “I mean, I guess he has his hands full with the campaign, but it would have been nice to see him.”

“Nermut’s got his own parties to go to,” Dar muttered, honeyed tone falling flat. 

“Oh no,” Pleck said, rolling onto his side so he could look at them with his good eye. “Is it like the Rebellion all over again? Is he going through Seesu boot camp?”

The captain sighed heavy in the back of their throat. “No, it’s just weird with him right now. I don’t really feel like talking about it.”

“Oh, is he like, being all impressionable-”

“I said,” Dar growled, talons quivering, “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Pleck had thankfully learned the signals to retreat by now, and he fell silent. Bargie, on the other hand, was humming loudly, engines whirring just for the fun of it.

“Hey Dar, if you wanna talk about it with me, I’ve got a ton of dust in my vents that would make it waaaaay easier to deal with,” the ship said.

“I’m not sure if that’s how that works,” C-53 began, but Dar was already clambering to their feet. 

“That sounds great, Barge,” they said. “Boys? Can you watch our fully grown children while Bargie and I have a chat?”

“Oh, uh, you got it,” Pleck said, raising a hand in salutation while C-53 nodded.

After the captain disappeared onto the ship, Pleck settled back in the grass, looking forlorn. “Guess I jucked that one up, huh?” he murmured, the lavender sky reflecting off his eye as he gazed into the distance.

C-53 watched him carefully. “You know how they get sometimes,” he stated. 

“I know, but Dar wanted to relax and I went ahead and made them all agitated again.” He plucked a piece of grass from beside him and fiddled with it, keeping his eye on the clouds. “Should just keep my stupid mouth shut.”

His processors hummed, tacking together Pleck’s words with data stored in C-53’s memory bank. “There are many times since we’ve met that I would agree with that statement, Pleck,” he said, recalling a particular incident years ago that nearly resulted in the tellurian getting ritually sacrificed. “But lately I would say you’ve been too quiet, if I can be frank.”

Pleck idly tied his grass stem in a knot. “Got a lot to think about,” he replied vaguely. He tossed the grass in C-53’s direction and watched it flutter to the ground between them. 

“Such as?”

Pleck floundered, freckled face animated as he searched for an answer. “Well, y’know, the usual,” he finally said, “The Allwheat bearing down on us, the fate of the galaxy’s leadership hanging in the balance, hundreds of sentients out there dying for no reason, Seesu Gundu’s failing campaign…” he trailed off and shrugged, hazel eye refusing to look at him. “Y’know.”

“Is the Allwheat still contacting you?” C-53 asked, gently.

Pleck flinched at his words all the same. He scratched the side of his jaw. He needed a shave. “Yes,” he said quietly.

“How often?”

The tellurian was tearing out grass by the fistful, now, slowly and methodically. His eyelashes fluttered low over his cheekbones as he continued to avoid C-53’s scanners. “Almost every day. Multiple times a day, sometimes.” His voice was soft and cautious, as if he would set C-53 off if he said something wrong.

_We instilled that nervousness in him_ , C-53 realized suddenly. It had been easy to belittle Pleck when he was his usual unflappable self, but now it was pitiful to see the results on his self-esteem. C-53’s processors buzzed, drawing conclusions for him.

It hurt. It hurt to see his friend like this. And it was partially his fault he had gotten that way.

For once in his life, C-53 was at a loss for words. AJ and Horsehat continued to sleep peacefully a few yards away while Pleck, white-knuckled, tore clods of grass out of the earth beside him, refusing to meet his best friend’s eyes. The dust filtering through his system wasn’t making it any easier for him to compute this, and he almost wished he had remained sober for this conversation.

Maybe that way he wouldn’t feel so helpless. Somehow, saying ‘I’m here for you’ felt horribly inadequate.

“It’s not just the fact that it talks to me,” Pleck continued after an agonizing stretch of silence. “It’s the things it says. It… knows me, somehow. Says things about me that are true and real and it gets inside my head.” His shoulders were curled with tension, his head bent low, blue hair skewing out of its ponytail. 

“Things that are true?” C-53 asked. “You mean, facts about our missions, or-”

“Like stuff about who I am. As a person.” He tossed the grass away from him in disgust and folded his arms protectively around his own torso. He tucked his knees up to his chest and hunched over, continuing in a small voice. “I know this is all my fault already, okay? I don’t need Beano’s weird hybrid Rodd-ghost telling me about it constantly.”

Pleck didn’t cry, but he did look like a frightened animal, huddled in the grass like that. While C-53 gazed down at him, his fan kicked on, startling both of them. He didn’t think he’d taken that much dust, but his processors were definitely firing off under an unusual amount of strain.

“Sorry,” Pleck muttered. “That was probably too much, huh?” He carefully uncurled himself, stood, and brushed the grass off of his robe. “I’m gonna…” he faltered, remembering that Bargie was full of dust and an angry Dar and the rest of their team was sound asleep. He cast his eye around the grassy hillside and the farmland below, the sky purpling around him. He looked so lost. 

“Pleck, if I may,” C-53 ventured. His frame was vibrating uncomfortably from the heavy industrial fan, and he hoped it would kick off soon. “You don’t have to tell me about this if it upsets you. We can talk about other things. Or we don’t have to talk at all.”

The tellurian stared at where C-53 lay in the grass, the expression on his face complicated and messy. He always wore his emotions on his face. It was a marvel none of them saw his breakdown coming sooner.

After a beat, Pleck reached up and undid the rubber band keeping his hair back, shaking out the ponytail and letting his locks fall around his shoulders. “Sure. Sorry. I’ll…” He wrapped the rubber band distractedly around his wrist. “I’ll stay. I can stay here.”

And stay he did. They settled into companionable silence, absorbed in their own thoughts as the stars blinked into view around them. C-53's fan eventually stalled to a halt. At one point, he thought he saw Pleck’s lips moving in a silent, prayer-like repetition, but his scanners couldn’t quite track what he was saying.

His dust-addled cube was drawing up memories and notions he had long since compartmentalized, scattering his internal filing system with careless abandon. Pleck had come a long way since they’d all first set foot on the Bargarian Jade. He wasn’t clueless anymore, though he did blurt the occasional tactless observation every once in a while. He’d escaped federal tyranny, survived a bitter revolution, and resolved to lead the next one of his own accord with nothing but a stupid stick and his own naive willpower. 

C-53 remembered the first time their consciousnesses had been tied, when they were at Suetopia and experiencing each other’s emotions as they happened. Pleck had felt so unsure, so curious, and so happy to be around friends. Friends. Had C-53 considered him a friend, then? He wasn’t sure when that had happened, but he did know the next time the two of them had been neurally connected, inside Kevin the blob, the experience was entirely different. C-53 had felt awash with every kind of emotion, a pleasant, peachy feeling he attributed to being one with hundreds of other sentients. 

But… no, that wasn’t right. The dust zinged up and down his coding, plucking at his memories like a harp. He remembered dawning understanding as he laid scanners on his crew, feeling their emotions submerging him, passing between them and identifying them one by one. He remembered locking eyes with Pleck last, cringing away from a fear and nakedness that softened in the orange glow around them. He remembered being flooded with longing, a latent ache in his wiring that he felt as his own, though it didn’t originate from his cube. He remembered. He remembered.

He...  _ remembered _ .

“Oh my Rodd,” he blurted, realizing a nanosecond too late he’d exclaimed it out loud. 

“What?” Pleck startled, looking around. “What is it?”

“I uh,” C-35’s cube was in overdrive as he scrambled. That look he’d given him in the blob, that ache deep in his fibers, that quiet hesitation every time they were close. Pleck had  _ feelings _ for him.  _ Strong _ feelings. Why had he buried that? Why had it resurfaced?

“...I saw a shooting star,” he lied.

Gullible, trusting Pleck believed him instantly. “Aw, I missed it,” he said.

“It was on your blind side,” C-53 replied, hating himself for continuing the ruse. “I’ll point it out if I see another one. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. They’re fast little guys. Used to get them back on Rangus Six all the time.” Pleck stared fondly up at the velvet night, reminiscing. 

C-53 wanted to slip into low power mode so that he could better examine this sudden realization. His tellurian coworker, his best friend, the man lying drunkenly in the grass beside him, had yearned for him for… months, possibly. At least a season. How had that happened? How had he not realized sooner? Was he still yearning, after all this time?

Pleck stretched his arms luxuriously over his head. “Hey, C-53?” he asked, his voice going soft with drowsiness.

He angled his chin ever so slightly. “Yes?”

“I’m glad you’re here with me.”

C-53 hoped Pleck couldn’t hear the strange, small juddering noise coming from his internal processor. His vocal modulator was slow to start up, but it spoke the truth.

“I am, too.”


	4. Pleck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pleck reflects on the past.

Depending on where he looked, it had begun two years ago.

Pleck was folded back in his bedroom-closet, comfortably drunk, fingers tingling subtly. He wasn’t sure if this was a side effect of lingering dust in Bargie’s vents (she had claimed it was safe to go aboard half an hour ago) or his conversation with C-53, but it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling. It was two in the morning. Pleck tucked himself in the corner, drowsy.

The Allwheat was blessedly quiet tonight, giving him some room to think. That was the first time anyone had asked him about the voice in his head with any sincerity. It had caught him off guard, and it was laughable how easily everything had come rushing out of him. At least C-53 had received Pleck’s turmoil with uncharacteristic gentleness. Maybe it was the dust mellowing him out.

The last time he had spilled his guts to the droid like that, C-53 wasn’t even conscious. Pleck had been curled up in this very room, holding his friend’s life in the palm of his hand. A dangerous thing, in retrospect - Pleck wasn’t exactly graceful in handling breakable objects. But Dar was shuddering with the realization of what they’d done to their colleague and insisted he held onto it. To keep it safe.

Pleck’s eye fluttered shut as he lost himself in the memory.

“Listen, listen, Dar,” Pleck said, holding a hand out toward the security officer like one would to a spooked animal. “He’s not dead. You didn’t kill him.”

“No, I  _ obliterated _ him,” Dar responded, chest rising and falling heavily.

The wreckage of C-53’s frame lay in a heap just inside Bargie’s loading bay. Pleck could see the remains of a gun poking out of the rubble, torn from his body after he had pointed it at Centurion Tittle.  _ What kind of C unit would be equipped with guns? _ he wondered. And what kind of person would aim one at a  _ child _ ?

C-53’s flat voice and the glow in his eyes in that moment had frightened Pleck, and he had froze in the same moment Dar had surged forward to dismember him. He was already awed by his coworker’s strength, but it was still a terrifying sight to see them rip apart raw steel with their bare hands. Doubly so when that raw steel was one of Pleck’s friends.

They were both feeling a little jelly-legged as they stood there in the bay while Bargie lifted them out of Klongdtt. Dar was still shaking slightly, slowly calming themself down as they drew in breath after breath. Pleck had seen them shaking with fury plenty of times (often aimed at himself), but not like this. He tried again to reassure them.

“He told us he lived inside his cube or something, right?” he asked, trying to sound composed despite the strain in his own voice. “Is the cube still there?”

Dar raised a clawed hand to rub at their face. “I don’t know. I don’t know,” they murmured. They dropped their hand and surveyed the twisted heap of metal. “It would be in his torso, right?”

“Yeah, what’s left of it,” Pleck couldn’t help blurting, wincing even as he said it.

Dar shot him a withering look. They circled C-53’s ruined frame, sifting through the machinery they had just torn apart like paper, until they discovered the piece they were looking for with a small, “aha!”

Pleck hurried over to Dar as they knelt to extract a dented chest cavity. They turned it over in their massive hands until they found the panel containing their friend’s consciousness. With a small amount of gentle jimmying, Dar was able to slide it open, revealing the crystalline blue cube inside. Miraculously, it was unharmed. Pleck could see Dar’s shoulder’s visibly slump with relief.

“Oh, thank Rodd,” he exhaled, some of the brittle anxiety in his own lungs breaking up at the sight. “See, Dar? He’s fine. You didn’t kill him. He’s alright. He’s gonna be alright.”

At this point, he was reassuring himself as much as he was the security officer. C-53 looked so fragile and vulnerable in this small, shining state. “Hey C,” he ventured. “Can you hear us, buddy?”

Silence. It was crushing.

Dar took in a deep breath. “I don’t think he’s able to… be…without a frame,” they guessed. They tilted the droid’s torso, dented like a tin can, in Pleck’s direction. “Can you take it out? I’m afraid to touch it.”

“Dar, I don’t think you’re going to hurt him-” he began, but Dar gave him a pleading look that shut him up.

Delicately, he reached out and removed the cube from its slot. He wasn’t expecting it to be warm, and the latent heat on his skin surprised him. It lay in his palm, glowing softly, and Pleck was overcome by a sense that this was transgressive in some way, like he shouldn’t be touching his friend like this. Holding onto him with his bare fingers.

“We should uh,” Dar’s voice pulled him out of his trance. “We should tell Bargie what happened.”

“Oh, right,” Pleck answered, eyes still glued to the cube. “Yeah. How should I…?” He did not want to carry C-53’s life around loose in his hand like this, terrified of dropping it. 

Beside him, Dar stood from where they had knelt beside the wrecked droid frame and gazed down at Pleck from their full height. There was still a hint of worry in their eyes. “I don’t know. Does your uniform have pockets?”

The question struck him as odd. “Yeah. Does yours not?”

“My whole body is pockets.”

“Right.”

They made their way to the bridge, and Pleck slipped C-53’s consciousness into the cargo pocket of his shorts, where he hoped it would be jostled the least as he walked. The cube was light, but the importance of it weighed heavily against his leg. To Pleck, this would be like if someone could just take out his heart, or his brain, and keep it close until they found a new place for it. He already knew he was underqualified for this ambassador position. He felt overwhelmingly underqualified to be handling a droid’s soul.

They confessed to Bargie and deflected Nermut with varying levels of success. And that night, Pleck was expected to just sit there, in his cramped little room, like everything was normal. Bargie had offered to let C-53’s consciousness rest on one of her shelves, but Pleck couldn’t bring himself to let the cube out of his sight. 

He didn’t know why he felt so protective all of a sudden. It wasn’t like the droid had ever needed him. C-53 had always been so self-assured, powerful in his infinite knowledge, cool and in control. But now he was just… tiny. Vulnerable. It settled uncomfortably in Pleck’s chest. 

It was weird that he was just sitting there staring at it, right?

His room was dark, save for the soft blue glow diffusing from the lexicon. Pleck held it delicately in his fingertips, shifting its position every few minutes as he gazed at it. He wouldn’t describe himself as an individual with sweaty hands, but he remembered C-53 saying he couldn't get wet without being critically damaged, and Pleck wanted to be safe. Should he wrap it in a towel, or something? Set it on a pillow? Would that be more comfortable? Could he even feel anything, his consciousness reverted in this way?

“Hey, C-53,” he said quietly. “I know you probably can’t hear me, but uh.” He faltered, wondering if he even had a reason to speak or if he was just scared. “Just wanna say I’m here for you.”

The cube warmed his hands gently, silently.

Pleck went on, filling the unbearable space around him with words. “I may not uh. Y’know, be the best ambassador in the Federated Alliance or anything, but,” he broke off, unable to finish the sentence without laughing a little at himself, “I’m not jucking this one up. We’re gonna bring you back, okay?”

He was definitely talking to himself, he considered. C-53 couldn’t hear him. At least he didn’t think he could. Surely he would have something witty to say in response if they were actually having a conversation. This was just a self-soothing compulsion Pleck was doing to make himself feel better about holding his friend’s soul in his hands. Maybe he should put it away so he wouldn’t think about it.

“Look, I don’t know what happened to you back there,” he sighed. “You kind of went all murder-bot on us all of a sudden. Was that you, or was that some weird thing with the Federated Alliance wiping your memory or whatever?”

C-53 didn’t answer him, as he knew he wouldn’t. Pleck kept talking. It helped him sort himself out.

“Whatever it was, I’m glad you’re okay. So is Dar. They feel terrible about having to uh. Y’know. Wreck you like that.” The security officer’s concerned face surfaced in his mind. He hoped they were alright. “Please don’t blame them for breaking you. Heh, if anything, you can blame me for not knowing what to do. Dar was the one who actually carried you back to the ship.”

Blame me. Blame me. The crew already did it all the time. It would be easy for him to take that on and lift some of the guilt from Dar’s shoulders. He could do that at least, he thought.

Pleck’s face was awash with C-53’s warm blue light. He rotated it in his hands, running his fingertips along the edges, over the corners. So marvelously designed. So elegant. It suited him. Pleck leaned his head back against the wall of his closet and sighed. 

“C-53, I know you don’t think of me as a friend, but I really do care about you.” Pleck could not keep the wistful strain out of his words, and was grateful the droid couldn’t hear him like this. It was much easier to hide under a laugh that was always waiting for him at the surface. “I’m gonna keep you safe. We’ll get you a new body. And you can go back to correcting me every time I’m wrong, okay?”

There was no bitterness in his voice when he said that. C-53’s vast knowledge of intergalactic protocol had saved the crew’s skin multiple times in their service to the Federated Alliance. Pleck was beginning to like the sound of the droid’s vocal modulator chiming in mildly to steer him back on the correct course. It was a comforting sound. He missed it.

Yawning, he slumped down and settled onto his side, setting the cube in front of him. “I’ve got you, C,” he whispered. “You’re safe with me. Just like I’m safe with you.”

Pleck had drifted off like that, curled protectively around C-53’s soul. 

Now, Pleck didn’t need to keep such a careful eye on his friend. He was housed in a loader frame, large and intimidating, powerful enough to lift even Bargie, probably, if he wanted to. Pleck couldn’t shake his fondness for the droid even now, with a blank face and a cold, unyielding body. When he’d told him on Biktar that he was beautiful in every frame, Pleck had meant it.

C-53 wasn’t the body he lived in. He was the heart inside of it, and as long as he was there to keep Pleck gently grounded, he didn’t care what form he took. He bit back a laugh, remembering that he’d realized his feelings for the droid when his cube was housed in a humidifier. That was so long ago. He hurt with the strain of still keeping it to himself.

A whisper on the edge of his thoughts yanked him violently out of his reverie. The Allwheat was back, with its insults and its unfathomable truths. 

“That’s my cue,” he sighed. 

Pleck let unconsciousness take him before he could think about anything else.


	5. C-53

Depending on where he looked, it had begun with the Federated Alliance. 

Immediately following the events of the Battle of Sistoo, C-53 had been captured, his frame junked for parts, and his consciousness locked inside a cage with a heavy iron bolt. He’d been through plenty of painful experiences before his initiation into the Alliance, but nothing had so powerfully suppressed his emotions like this.

It was agony of a different sort, standing on the surface of a frozen lake, his feelings swirling like a sea beneath him. He could see them, he could reach for them, but if he broke through the ice that supported him he would surely be swallowed up and drown in them. It was a horrible state of being. 

Everything was muted in the worst way. Experiencing joy, anger, sadness, always working through his coding, only to be met with the oppressive iron wall of his restraining bolt, left him feeling as if he were only a shell. C-53 was a droid who normally felt things quite strongly - perhaps too strongly, at times, but at least it was him. This Federated Alliance protocol and diplomatic relations designation was not who he was. But the bolt was cinched tight on his words and his thoughts until he wasn’t sure who he was even  _ supposed _ to be anymore. 

Getting that thing off was more freeing than anything he had ever experienced. He hadn’t even cared that his stupid Alliance frame had been destroyed in the process. Being subjected to another bolt as an On-And-Off Burger employee had nearly broken him.

Pleck, of all people, had been there to pull him out of it that time.

It was strange to have a relationship with someone who, for their first season of working together, had only known C-53’s canned and pre-processed personality. It was embarrassing, to say the least. He still remembered when he had told the tellurian, icily, “I am  _ not _ your friend,” and watched him wilt like a forgotten daisy. 

Granted, they hadn’t known each other very long when he’d said that, but he could have handled it more tactfully. And it wasn’t like he hadn’t wanted to get to know Pleck better at the time. At least well enough so that every word coming out of his mouth didn’t rile C-53 up so much. The restraining bolt’s effects were typically less painful when he wasn’t actively trying to suppress his emotions. A high enough spike tended to fire off a pretty jarring error code.

“No, I - he got, like, erased or something.” ERROR.

“What if you were a car and I like, drove you around?” ERROR.

“C-53, have you been programmed to cater to my ignorance?” ERROR.

“You’re more than just a cube!” ERROR.

C-53 had a pretty long list of the times being around Pleck had been painful for him when they were working for the Federated Alliance. He was also the first face he saw when the crew had slotted his cube into the ship’s un-bolted humidifier, and the sudden flood of unrestrained feelings had almost caused C-53 to shut back down again. 

“Hey, C-53?” Bargie’s voice reverberated around the droid, shocking him out of his thoughts. “Why are you in my cargo hold?”

Squatting among the boxes and crates seemed like the best place for the droid to go and process what he had just learned undisturbed, but of course he could never escape the ship herself. “I just needed a little solitude, Bargie,” he responded, not unkindly. 

The ship let out one of her long, audible sighs that the crew was so familiar with. “Not you, too. I thought the party was going to make everyone start hanging out again.”

“Things like this don’t always repair themselves overnight,” the droid reasoned. 

“Things like what?” Bargie prodded. “Are you okay? You’ve been sitting there on the floor for like, eight hours.”

C-53 considered. He  _ had _ been playing through videos stored in his memory bank for quite a while, but he hadn’t realized it had been that long. Bargie was a trusted friend - she probably wouldn’t have any constructive advice, but she would at least let him voice aloud what had absorbed his thoughts all day. “Are you projecting over the PA right now?” he asked.

“Uhhh.” There was a long pause, and then a heavy beep sounded overhead. “No.”

“You definitely were.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Bargie deflected. “Spill. Tell me everything.”

Wearily, C-53 recounted the conversation he’d had with Pleck the previous night, leaving out some of the tellurian’s more personal details in consideration of his privacy, and finished with the conclusion he’d drawn about his feelings. It still made his coding fray inexplicably to think about it, but once he fell silent, Bargie’s reply was nonplussed.

“I already knew,” she said. “The feelings part, not the Allwheat part.”

“You-” C-53’s processors whirred in surprise. “You did?”

“Yeah, I mean, it’s kind of obvious. I thought you knew too and were just hoping it would go away because it was too awkward.”

“I most certainly did _ not _ know,” C-53 answered, somewhat stirred. 

“How?” Bargie demanded. “How did you not know? I’ve been telling you guys there’s tension for years.”

“Yeah, I thought you meant  _ sexual _ tension,” the droid was beginning to feel defensive now. Was he really stupid enough to have missed something so glaringly obvious?

“Well, I thought it was that at first, for sure,” Bargie clarified. “But C,  _ seriously _ ? Seriously. Do you not  _ listen _ to him when he talks to you?”

“What - I -” He dug around in his coding for the words he needed and came up short. “I listen,” he declared. “What do you mean by that?”

Another heavy sigh. It rumbled the walls of the cargo hold. “This is embarrassing. You should just go ask him about it.”

Alarm raced through C-53’s wires. “I will do no such thing. I’m still… figuring out how I feel about it.”

“Oh, that’s no good,” C-53 could feel the ship humming with intrigue. “You should just reject him and get it over with.”

“It seems like that would be indelicate of me,” C-53 replied, deflecting from the notion that his first instinct was not, in fact, to reject him at all. 

“Hey, look, I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again,” Bargie’s tone took on a scolding edge. “Workplace relationships never work. They just make things complicated and messy and nobody should ever do them. You saw what happened with Dar and Berger.”

“Well, yeah, but that was mostly just - y'know-”

“Jucking.”

“Jucking, yeah.”

“Isn’t that what you’re after?” Bargie groused. “You’ve offered before.”

C-53 felt his cube grow warm inside his torso. “That was a long time ago.”

It was  _ one _ time. Back when he’d still been restrained. C-53 still wasn’t sure if the proposition had been an effect of his altered programming or if he had actually wanted it. Either way, it didn’t matter. Pleck had decisively declined. It was the first time he had witnessed the tellurian be decisive about anything.

“I am not after that at the moment,” he clarified. 

Bargie offered a heavy, “huh,” but said nothing else. 

The silence that stretched was long and tense as they both pondered the situation. Finally, C-53 clambered to his feet, jostling cargo crates as he went.

“Bargie, I cannot stress enough how important it is that this conversation stays in this room,” he warned.

“It’s gonna leave this room eventually,” she argued. “Secrets don’t last long aboard the Bargarian Jade. Better figure it out before someone else does.”

“Thanks, Barge.” The droid’s reply was laced with sarcasm. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

He exited the cargo hold and made his way up the hall. The passage was dark, illuminated only by Bargie’s security lighting. He briefly missed the Midnight Shadow and its wide spectrum of sensors. The loader frame’s capabilities were rudimentary at best - he couldn’t even process the entire light spectrum. It did, at least, have a limited night vision option, which he flicked on as he made his way down the hall, flooding his scanners with muted green.

C-53 had a rather long list of qualities he wanted from the next frame he occupied, feeling terribly limited in his current one. It definitely beat that pathetic Tiny TM model he was in for a brief stint, but he still knew he could do better. He wanted to see infrared again. Longed for an organized filing system. And, yes, he missed the sensation of touch. Loader droids weren’t exactly built for physical contact with other beings. 

A bright green figure appeared around the corner up ahead, and C-53’s frame stalled to a halt when he recognized its heat signature. Pleck had actually emerged from his room and was wandering down the hall in his direction.

“Oh, there you are,” the tellurian said brightly as he approached him.

The night vision made his face appear to C-53 as a blurred white dot, so he quit the command and dispelled it. The dim lighting didn’t make seeing him much easier, but at least C-53 could somewhat discern Pleck’s facial expressions this way. The man’s animated countenance was a good 50% of how he communicated.

“Were you looking for me?” C-53 asked, gazing down at him in surprise.

“Well, yeah,” Pleck responded, peering back at him in the darkness. “I heard Bargie on the PA saying you were all by yourself down here so I uh, I just wanted to check in on you.”

The droid’s machinery whirred idly as he processed this. That something as trivial as C-53 being alone would pull Pleck out of his isolation made sense considering how the tellurian felt about him, but C-53 still found himself touched by the sentiment. “Well, that’s very nice of you, Pleck, but I assure you I’m doing fine.”

Confused and still working through things, but fine. Probably. 

“Oh, okay,” Pleck rocked back on his heels, nodding. “G- Good. Good to hear.”

After a short pause, C-53 prompted, “How are  _ you _ feeling?”

The tellurian chuckled and jammed his hands in his pockets. “Oh, man, I’m pretty hungover,” he replied, offering a weak smile.

When he didn’t elaborate, C-53 prodded again. “Has the Allwheat been talkative today?”

Pleck’s brows drew in, looking as though the question puzzled him. He responded hesitantly. “I… slept most of the day,” he said, his voice growing small. “So I didn’t hear it, then. It said a few things about an hour ago, but, ah,” he shrugged in an attempt to downplay the issue. “It wasn’t any more horrible than it usually is.”

The security lights hummed indifferently around them as they stood facing each other in the empty hallway.

“Hm,” C-53’s neural networking was already looking for patterns, casting around for a way to ease his friend’s torment. “What seems to set it off?” he asked.

Pleck still had a strange look on his face, as if searching for an ulterior motive beneath his words. “It… usually comes through when I’m not, uh,” he gnawed on his lip as he found the words, “mentally engaged? Like, as soon as I zone out, it’s -” he snapped for emphasis, “- right there.”

“You do tend to zone out quite a lot,” C-53 commented.

Pleck’s laugh was bitter. It sounded like soured sunshine. “You’re telling me.”

“What sort of activities would you consider mentally engaging?” C-53 prompted gently, trying to shake the unpleasant feeling that just raced through his wiring.

He watched the tellurian fidget as he thought about it. “Well, I meditate,” he began. “And, uh, talking to the crew helps, and going on missions where we meet new people. But we haven’t had a lot of those lately, so….” he trailed off, his stare vacant. C-53 could barely make out the soft lines of his face in the dim light. 

“Do you think a holo would help?” he prompted.

Pleck shrugged again. “I haven’t tried it. I can’t watch holos in my room.”

“Why not watch one in the lounge?”

His shoulders were beginning to curl in defensively when he responded, “I just- I didn’t wanna bother people.”

C-53’s head tilted, considering him fondly. “When has that ever stopped you before?”

A laugh startled out of Pleck, shocking a genuine smile onto his face this time. He raised an arm and scratched at the back of his neck, looking away. “Well, you got me there,” he admitted. “I don’t know why it feels different now.”

An inexplicable impulse to scoop the tellurian up in his arms and carry him to the lounge himself surged up in C-53’s coding. He clamped down hard on the urge, bypassing the loader’s programming with a great amount of effort and a small amount of juddering from his processor. Good Rodd, that was unexpected. His fan was spinning again.

“Let’s watch a holo and see if that does anything,” C-53 declared before Pleck could ask the question he was showing on his face. “Come on.” He surged past him toward the lounge.

“Wait, both of us?” Pleck spun, hurrying to match the droid’s stride. 

“And anyone else who wishes to join,” C-53 answered. “Sound good?”

Pleck nodded, a smile sneaking onto his mouth as if it didn’t have permission to be there. “Sounds good.”

The common area had been reverted back to its usual state, with its cushy couches gathered around the video monitor. Pleck popped a bag of popcorn for himself while C-53 ruminated over movie options. The smell of hot butter and salt lured AJ in from the adjacent room, and when he told the two of them he had never seen Bargie’s greatest hits, they decided to have a marathon to get the clone caught up. 

“You can sit next to me, C-53,” Pleck said, patting the space beside him on the couch and grinning. He sat cross-legged on the cushion, balancing the bowl of popcorn in his lap.

“Very funny,” C-53 replied dryly. “At this size I would definitely crush that couch.”

“Okay, your arm can sit next to me, then,” Pleck conceded. 

AJ was on Pleck’s other side with his feet up on the coffee table, helping himself to the popcorn. Both Pleck and C-53 watched, half disgusted and half fascinated, as the CLINT stuffed it into his helmet kernel by kernel.

“Hey, maybe take your helmet off, AJ,” Pleck suggested. “That can’t be comfortable.”

“Yes, we don’t need a repeat of that time you got  _ hijacked _ .” C-53 agreed.

With no small amount of grumbling, AJ disengaged the pressure lock on his helmet and pulled it off, covering the couch in crumbled bits of corn. Pleck scooped the bowl out of the way to avoid catching any stray pieces, an amused light dancing in his eye.

“Robot Man, you gonna watch with us or what?” AJ prompted as he brushed crumbs off of himself.

C-53 belatedly realized he had just been standing there, staring. He settled his frame next to the couch and, after some consideration, rested his arm as gently as he could on the cushion next to Pleck. The couch groaned, but it held. Pleck patted his frame assuredly. 

The films were, well, they were definitely Bargie flicks. AJ interrupted every few minutes to ask what was going on, and Bargie herself chimed in with commentary once she noticed that the hits were being played. C-53 kept a watchful scan on Pleck as the playlist dragged into the night. A few times, he caught that silent, prayer-like motion as he repeated mantras to himself, and did his best to redirect his attention to the holo. 

AJ eventually fell asleep and Pleck wasn’t far behind, eyelid drooping wearily. The tellurian shifted sideways and stifled a yawn, leaning against the arm of C-53’s frame.

The droid felt the weight of his body and dimly registered a sense of warmth as Pleck rested his drowsy head against him, but that was all his rudimentary sensors could manage. His coding twanged with a sharp sense of loss, but he redirected the feeling.

“That doesn’t seem very comfortable for you,” he said after some processing.

Pleck made a muffled, placid noise. “S’fine. I sleep in a cold metal box every night. This is definitely a step up.”

“You  _ still _ don’t have a mattress?” C-53 asked incredulously. “I thought that was a running joke.”

Pleck laughed softly against C-53’s frame, shaking it a little. “The joke is that I’ll have chronic back pain by the time I’m thirty.”

C-53 did not laugh. “You could sleep out here on the couch,” he suggested.

“Mmm, maybe just this once,” Pleck murmured, his voice thick with fatigue. He shifted slightly, pressing himself closer to C-53’s frame. It seemed he was craving physical touch as much as the droid was, which apparently was a laughable amount if he had resorted to cuddling an unyielding metal bar. C-53 found it endearing.

The holo flickered in the dark, casting the three sentients in a shifting blue glow. Pleck and C-53 watched the droning video feed while AJ dozed. Near the end of  _ The Ship Stars Are Made Of _ , C-53 noticed Pleck’s breathing evening out and going soft beside him. His eye had fallen shut. He was asleep.

Well. Looks like he’s never moving from this spot again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "Pleck will never have a mattress" gag physically pains me. His back must be fucked UP.


	6. Pleck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pleck is struck by the Allwheat and a confrontation with C-53 in two very different ways.

Depending on where he looked, it had begun hundreds of years ago.

The Allwheat hit him hard that day. After waking up on the couch next to C-53, feeling warm and soft inside, Pleck wandered to his cleaning chamber for a shower and was immediately assaulted.

It  _ hurt _ this time, the mocking voice loud and harsh in his mind, and it was all he could do to remain standing under the spray of hot water. He sucked in a breath, keeping a white-knuckled grip on the handicap bar.

“Shut up,” he hissed through gritted teeth. 

He ran through his affirmations, tried to fling his thoughts out to something else, but the demonic entity bore down on him viciously until its voice broke his mind open like an egg. His legs gave out and he slammed painfully to his hands and knees, shuddering.

_ YOU’RE A FAILURE YOU’RE WORTHLESS ALL YOUR FRIENDS HATE YOU THE ALLWHEAT WILL CONSUME EVERYTHING MY POWER IS INESCAPABLE YOUR PATHETIC LIFE IS JUST A MONUMENT TO YOUR FAILURE AND YOUR FRAGILE MIND WILL BREAK UNDER THE WEIGHT OF IT ALL YOU'RE TINY YOU’RE NOTHING YOU’RE USELESS-  _

Pleck crouched and shivered and took it. His head split with pain. It was so unbearably loud, so relentless and all-consuming. It blacked out his eyes and burned in his ears, assailing him until the water ran cold. 

When the voice finally withdrew, his muscles ached from tensing up and one of his knees was bleeding from its impact with the tile. Pleck raised a shaking hand and cut the water off.

“Juck…” he exhaled weakly. He had let his guard down, gone complacent in the presence of his friends. It only made sense that the Allwheat had returned with a vengeance. 

Trembling, he stepped out of the shower, toweled off, and gingerly dressed himself. In the weeping surface of the mirror, he caught his own reflection. One of his eyes was heavy with fatigue and the other was plain ruined, gazing back at him like a spectre. His unshaven jaw was tense, his shoulders pulled in tight. He looked every bit as exhausted as he felt.

_ Why _ was this just his _ life _ now?

He hadn’t asked to be chosen. He especially hadn’t asked to be chosen for something so galaxy-shattering. Why couldn’t he have been the guy who was chosen to tell stupid jokes, or write a novel that he abandoned halfway through? Why did it have to be him?

When Pleck had found Derf on that barren rock of an asteroid, he was dazzled by the stories the old man wove about the Space. It seemed like an impossible fantasy at the time - him, Pleck Decksetter, a nobody of a tellurian from a backwater planet in the middle of nowhere, destined for greatness. After he’d joined the Federated Alliance, he had quickly learned that ambassador work was just as mind-numbing as farm work. Discovering he was chosen for something bigger than himself put stars in his eyes (he’d still had both of them at the time). It didn’t matter that his crew didn’t believe him or that his wood saber snapped in two.

He was going to be somebody. He was going to help people.

Of course, it was only fitting that Pleck Decksetter, tellurian disaster, would be indoctrinated into an order of other disasters. He had wandered blindly under the vague and largely unhelpful tutelage of Old Derf, clinging to the hope that all this searching would be worth it. He wanted it to be real. He  _ needed _ it to be real, so the sheer  _ nothingness  _ of his life actually meant something.

Traveling to Zima Prime may have been disappointing, but at least it was proof - evidence that his stubborn hope paid off. The Space was real. He was chosen. 

Now, it was all too real, the burden of responsibility weighing heavy on his shoulders. Perhaps he had defeated the Emperor, but at what cost? The Allwheat was ripping apart the galaxy, and it was his fault.  _ His _ fault. Pleck’s. Is this what it meant to be chosen?

Pleck stared numbly at his reflection. Slowly, he started to comb through his hair with his fingers. He looked horrible, white-faced and shaken, but he could at least try and offset the effect with some grooming. He didn’t bother to shave, but he did tie on his eyepatch as an afterthought. 

Sometimes, he wished none of this had ever happened. He wished he had stayed on Rangus Six, ignorant and safe, mind undisturbed by a hateful, mutant ghost. It was better than having breakdowns in the shower. It was better than being unable to trust his own thoughts. 

But no, he considered, watching the condensation run lazy tracks down the mirror. He wouldn’t trade this for anything. Not if it meant he’d never have met his crew. His friends. Dar, who’d slowly come around from actively disliking him to being a literal shoulder to cry on. Bargie, with her spirit and her strength in the face of everything she’s endured. Nermut’s passion for all that he was involved in. AJ, whom Pleck deeply loved. His curiosity. His verve for life.

He wouldn’t have met his noob without the Space. He wouldn’t have met any of them. It was destiny. 

And then there was C-53, the constant, supportive presence that never left his side. The pragmatic droid had never believed in the Space. When Pleck first learned he was chosen, C-53 had challenged him at every turn. In all fairness, he had been newly freed from his restraining bolt, and Pleck couldn’t find it in himself to be angry at the droid for ramming his shins repeatedly, goading him into a fight. He had actually found it delightful - C-53, flooded with newfound emotion, had decided to bother Pleck of all people.

The fact that C-53 had come around to believing in his Space-sensitivity was new to him, and he was still fighting an instinct to flinch away when he asked about it. He couldn’t forget that the droid had been the one to pull him out of the Cone of Silence a season ago, when Pleck’s heart was full of hate.

_ It’s me, C-53, talking to you. Your best friend. _ It echoed in his memory even today.

Now he was so much more than that to Pleck, and he had no idea how to approach it. C-53 had remained close to him despite his best efforts at isolation, watching over him when he couldn’t watch out for himself. Pleck felt so strongly for him, sometimes it physically hurt to keep it inside. Every time he was near the droid, he felt transparent, as if everyone could see the undercurrent of longing beneath his skin.

He loved all of his crew, but with C-53, he was in so deep he would be happy to drown in it.

Pleck managed to tie his hair back and let out a sigh. A thin line of blood traced down his shin from the fresh cut on his knee. He should probably go get the med kit from the kitchen and clean this up. That is, if his shaking hands would hold still enough to let him do it.

Barefoot, he trudged to the common room, willing for it to be empty. Upon entry, he saw that AJ had cleared out, but C-53 was still resting next to the couch in low power mode. Pleck paused in the doorway, eyeing him warily, but when his colleague didn’t stir, he tread carefully through the lounge and to the kitchenette beyond. He found the med kit in a cabinet by the fridge.

With trembling fingers, he reached up to retrieve it, biting back a curse as it slipped out of his grasp. It clattered loudly to the linoleum floor, popping open and scattering medical supplies everywhere.  _ Juck my life.  _ He knelt sorely to pick up the mess.

A smooth shift of machinery from the couch told Pleck that C-53 was stirring, making his pulse climb in alarm. He didn’t want his friend to see him like this, pale, shaking, kneeling on the floor with rolls of bandages slipping through his fingers. Hardly able to think. Brimming with heartache. 

“Pleck?” C-53’s footsteps were heavy as he approached. “Are you okay?”

“Hey,” he made a weak attempt at levity. “Just uh, picking up all this stuff I dropped… Clumsy me, right?”

“You’re bleeding.”

Pleck’s laugh sounded more like a panicked hiccup. “I’m fine, I just - I just slipped in the shower. I’m-” the bottle of hydrogen peroxide he tried to grasp fumbled out of his hand.

There was a long, agonizing pause as it rolled across the floor and bumped gently against the foot of C-53’s frame. Pleck kept his eye on the linoleum, unable to look at his friend.

Then he heard whirring, and a loader claw clamped onto the back of his robe, hoisting Pleck into the air.

“Whoa, C-53, what are you-”

“I’m making sure you’re paying attention,” C-53 spoke over him, carrying Pleck easily to the coat rack on the nearby wall. 

He flailed, resistant. “You don’t need to  _ pick me up _ -”

“Oh, I think I do,” C-53 insisted. He placed the bathrobe, and the tellurian inside it, onto a free hook and let him dangle there.

Pleck stopped struggling, hanging pathetically in defeat. He was so tired.

“Pleck, look at me.”

Pleck looked at him. He was very close, the face of his frame filling his field of vision so that he was all the tellurian could focus on. 

“Tell me what happened.”

Haltingly, Pleck recounted his attack in the cleaning chamber. He no longer saw a point in hiding it, incapacitated and laid bare by C-53’s scanners like this.

When he finished, C-53 drew back a little, studying him. He couldn’t tell what was going on in the droid’s cube - the face of his frame was still and passive. Blood continued to run sluggishly down Pleck’s leg, dripping onto the floor, loud amid the silence. 

C-53’s voice was stern but gentle when he finally spoke. “The next time this happens, I want you to come find me.”

“I don’t think-”

“I’m serious,” C-53 cut him off. He was so close to him Pleck could hear the hardware behind his face plate humming softly. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately-”

Pleck went rosy from ear to neck. “You have?”

“-And I would like to say that I  _ hate _ seeing you like this. You’re a good person and you have no business hiding away all the time when you’re clearly hurting. Pleck, you can  _ talk _ to me.” His vocal modulator sounded almost choked, and it was strange for Pleck to hear.

“I would be a pretty terrible friend if I just stood aside and watched when I know you’re in pain,” he continued. “I’m here for you. You come to me when you need me. This,” he gestured between them with a claw, “is how friendship works.”

Pleck sagged, his chest feeling hot and complicated in the face of C-53’s words. “Th - Thanks. Thanks, C. I’m sorry. I’ll - I’ll come tell you next time.”

He hadn’t realized how closely the droid had been paying attention to him. It made his arms feel tingly - or maybe that was the lack of circulation from being hung on a coat rack.

“Do you think you could maybe, uh,” he laughed uncomfortably, breakably, “maybe put me down now?”

“Right, sorry.”

C-53’s loader claw reached up and delicately removed him from the hook, rotating to deposit him as softly as possible on solid ground. Pleck’s legs shook when he stood, but thankfully they held his weight. He tipped his head back, gazing up at his friend, a whole mess of words threatening to spill out. The Space really did mean for them to meet. He believed it with all his heart.

C-53 indicated his split knee with a heavy clamp. “You should take care of that,” he told him. “I mean, I’d do it, but I sort of lack the appropriate dexterity right now.” The clamp clicked for emphasis. 

Pleck’s head went all foggy picturing C-53 bandaging his wounds, so he busied himself with the task before his blush could deepen. The disinfectant stung, grounding him a little more in reality. 

“I think we should start looking at ways to solve your Allwheat problem,” C-53 said as he migrated toward the mess of medical supplies on the floor. “Treat the source, not just the symptoms.”

Pleck gave him a cautious look. “I don’t know where I would even start with something like that.” His fingernails scraped at the wrapper of a bandage as he thought about it. “Maybe I could look back at the scrolls? Y’know, see if I missed something. Oh, C-53, you don’t have to…”

“No, no, I’ve got it.” C-53 was picking up each fallen item one by one, depositing them carefully in the red plastic container like an oversized claw game. It was adorable. Pleck ducked his head so he wasn’t staring.

“I think the scrolls will be a good place to start,” C-53 continued, oblivious to Pleck’s furtive gaze. “Do you still have them somewhere?”

Pleck nodded. He could dig them out of where he’d stashed them in storage a few months back. He placed the bandage thoughtfully over his knee, pressing down to make it stick. “D’you think we’ll actually be able to…” he faltered, doubtful. “Fix me?”

C-53 paused to consider him. “Pleck,” he said. “You’re not broken.”

“Okay, I didn’t mean-”

“But if it means you’ll be happy again, I’ll try my very best.” The droid gave him a significant look. “Will you let me help you?”

Pleck crushed the bandage wrapper in his fingers, insides suddenly going soft. C-53 was going to melt him with his sincerity at this rate. When Pleck answered, his voice came out very small. “Yes. Yes, I’d like that.”

To be happy again. He wanted it more than anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the newest episode just threw a wrench into what I planned on writing but the new content is so delicious I don't even care. Sacrificing yourself to the Allwheat to save the galaxy??? I'm here for it.
> 
> Thank you all for your lovely comments, they seriously make me smile. I didn't think anyone would even read this much less enjoy it - I'm glad you're all having a good time crying in the club with me about these two.


	7. C-53

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bargie gripes. The boys goof.

Depending on where he looked, it was still beginning. 

“Wow, you really have a thing for organics.”

C-53 hummed innocently. “I can’t say I have any idea what you’re talking about, Bargie.”

After he and Pleck had cleaned up the medical mess in the kitchen, the tellurian had disappeared in search of his old Zima scrolls, leaving C-53 alone in the common area. Well, as alone as one could be on a sentient ship. The Bargarian Jade’s attention span was selective, so one could never be sure whether they were being actively observed at any time.

“I saw what just happened,” Bargie said. “The tension between you two is - well, let’s just say it’s high. It’s very high.”

“That was a private conversation,” C-53 responded, somewhat defensively.

“If you wanted to have a private conversation, you should’ve had it off the ship,” Bargie said matter-of-factly.

“We’re in _space_ ,” C-53 argued. “And I don’t see how this means I have a _thing_ for organics.”

“Aw, come on,” Bargie’s rough voice insisted on the loudspeaker. “I know what I saw when we accessed each other’s memories a few years ago. You definitely have a type.”

“So do you,” he shot back, deflecting. 

“Oh, _I_ have a type?” Bargie exclaimed, affronted. “Do you _know_ who I’ve dated?”

C-53 tuned his audio sensitivity down as the ship launched into a monologue about her exes. Out of courtesy, he uploaded a subroutine to offer various _hmm_ s and _ah_ s as a placeholder for listening while his cube went elsewhere.

Whether he returned Pleck’s feelings was not the priority right now. His friend needed help, and C-53 was going to help him. It was as simple as that; there was no need to complicate things with whatever feelings he may or may not have for the tellurian. So what if he had a type? That didn’t apply to the current situation - Pleck was different. He was vulnerable, and it would be unfair of C-53 to take advantage of that.

He was becoming increasingly overwhelmed with tenderness every time he laid scanners on Pleck, and his loader programming urged him to stick a label on him that read FRAGILE: HANDLE WITH CARE. That particular instinct was easier to bypass than the instinct to lift, and he was left wondering if picking Pleck up had been a good idea after all. His one-eyed stare, aching and exhausted, had stirred something in C-53.

At least it had gotten his message across. I, C-53, am going to care about you. On purpose. Whether you like it or not. 

He had to set his romantic notions aside. There were more important things to worry about right now. He dimly registered Bargie still steamrolling overhead with her story, and he broke in respectfully.

“That’s all very interesting, Bargie, but I don’t see how it helps me.”

The ship sighed cantankerously. “I’m just sayin’ you’re gonna have to confront this sooner or later,” she said.

“Hm,” C-53 considered. “I think I’m going to choose later.”

\---

“Okay, I brought all the scrolls we got copies of from the library and uh, all the originals I have that Nermut didn’t make into a nest,” Pleck said around the box of papers in his arms.

He carried them over to the dining table, pausing when he saw the pre-existing mess of administrative documents, campaign flyers, and junk mail that already cluttered its surface. Hardly anyone used the table for eating these days. 

C-53 watched bemusedly as Pleck nudged the mess aside to make space for his new mess, dumping the contents of the box out. This was not going to be a very organized process. Things involving Pleck rarely were. 

“Are these texts all about the Zima religion in general, or you specifically?” he asked.

“Ah, well,” Pleck paused to brush a lock of hair out of his eye, gazing down at his chaotic archive. “The thing is, I don’t really know how to interpret all of them? I mean,” He began to shuffle through the stack, “there’s… here, this one says my actual first and last name,” he extricated a page and held it out for C-53 to read. 

“A ticking clock, in which Pleck Decksetter stands, to spin and draw nearer to the void, ” the droid echoed aloud. 

Pleck nodded, grimacing. “But then, like, then there’s this one,” he unrolled a tight ream of parchment and recited, 

“Whose stick is that? I think I know.  
Its owner is quite happy though.  
Full of joy like a rainbow,  
I watch him laugh. I cry hello.”

C-53 paused. “That sounds… dumb,” he said.

Pleck chuckled, rolling the parchment back up. “A lot of it is pretty dumb,” he admitted. “And I don’t know what all is relevant to, y’know, my whole thing, and what’s just some old Zima getting creative with their meditations on the Space.”

“Well, let’s see if we can’t sort them out,” C-53 said, lowering his frame enough so that he could read the texts from his vantage. 

That was their afternoon, reviewing and puzzling over the pile of ancient scrolls. C-53 had never given the Zima religion itself that much thought, but the more they dug into their teachings, the more he was convinced it was mostly just nonsense. He did have to give them some credit, though. A few of the scrolls had predicted Pleck’s life almost exactly. It was… kind of eerie, if he was being honest. 

The crew wandered in and out while they worked, checking in on their activities curiously but quickly losing interest once they realized they were essentially just studying. At one point, AJ asked if he could help, and they gave him a flowery poem to slog through until he gave up after about ten minutes. 

“You did a good job, AJ,” Pleck smiled as the CLINT left the room to find something else that would hold his attention. “You’ll get it eventually.”

Pleck was looking significantly more relaxed since that morning, C-53 noticed. His shoulders had returned to their usual easy slope and his smile sprang readily to his face. The droid found himself distracted from his task on more than one occasion, choosing instead to fixate on Pleck’s careful hands as he leafed through papers, or his delicate neck as he bent low to decipher some stray scribble. By the time the evening rolled around, they had stopped trying to make sense of the scrolls altogether, and were instead pointing out ridiculous lines to one another.

“Wait wait wait, here, check out this one,” Pleck brandished a photocopy in C-53’s face, barely containing his laughter.

“To pass through the eye, one must first pass through the butt?” C-53 read aloud, incredulous. “Do they mean literally?”

Pleck was fighting to get the words out through his giggling. “Who wrote this? This was a Zima?”

“This is a _sacred text_ .” C-53 insisted. “A _sacred religious text._ This is _your_ religion, Pleck.”

The tellurian shook his head, still laughing, as he set the paper aside. “Good Rodd.”

“Oh, here’s a good one,” C-53 raised a careful claw to slide one of the documents in Pleck’s direction.

Seeing the grin spread across his friend’s face was like watching a sunflower bloom. “Oh my Rodd,” he exclaimed, “is this a love poem?”

“Heaven hath no elegance like you, my radiant swan,” C-53 recited the first line, his vocal modulator lilting with his own laughter. “I have no idea why this was preserved as an ancient text.”

“We’ll put that one in the ‘dumb’ pile,” Pleck said, cheeks still rosy with mirth. He was smiling wide enough to show off his dimples, and it was a pleasant sight to C-53’s scanners. 

They continued to shuffle through papers in companionable silence. Pleck managed to assemble a fairly linear timeline of his own prophecy, and was attempting to piece it together with anything that seemed relevant. He had a better eye for patterns in the texts than C-53 did, something that the droid was surprised by. Perhaps deciphering the ancient words of the Zimas was something that was only inherent to other Zimas.

“C-53, look,” Pleck exclaimed suddenly. “I thought I had lost this one. It’s the scroll you’re mentioned in.” He excitedly uncurled the parchment and held it flat against the table.

C-53’s head tilted with interest. “ _I’m_ in the Zima scrolls?”

“I mean, you’re not mentioned by name,” Pleck admitted. He scooted the scroll toward the droid so he could get a better scan on it. “But I’m pretty sure it’s talking about you. Based on, y’know, context.”

 _And the humidifier will rise from its slumber_ _  
__Newly untethered, a free soul in a rectangle_  
 _And the Great One will feel a lump in his throat_ _  
__To wonder if this appliance would entrust his soul to him_

“Wow, this is… very specific,” C-53 commented. His coding was already drawing connections for him about the implications this had on his and Peck’s relationship. He was inclined to dismiss it as mindlessness, like so many of the other texts, but a small, irrational part of him clung to the words. Was the tellurian meeting him destined? Better question: did C-53 _want_ it to be?

“Yeah, I thought it was weird that they included that,” Pleck said, pulling the scroll back.

“You were worried I didn’t trust you?”

“Well, I mean-” Pleck’s ears reddened. “Up until that point you’d had your restraining bolt on, so I couldn’t be sure.”

C-53 nodded pensively. “True, I didn’t have a lot of allowance for personal expression back then.”

Pleck gave a small exhale of a laugh. “Yeah, it was like you became a totally different droid after that.”

“It was a punishing part of my life, to be sure.”

Pleck’s eye brightened. “Remember that time Nermut made you pick up that marble over and over again for like, an hour?” he asked, turning his sunny grin on C-53.

“Oh, Rodd, yeah,” the droid sighed, amused at the memory. “And you and Dar asked me to do it all sexy so I’d actually have some fun with it?”

“That was great, I really enjoyed that.”

“Oh, you did?” C-53 prompted, servos humming. “You enjoyed that?”

“No, I mean like-” Pleck went a darker shade of pink. “Not like, sexually, it was - I was just-” he stopped, gathered his thoughts, and restarted. “It was nice to see you having fun, is all,” he said. His smile softened as he reminisced. 

C-53’s voice lost its teasing edge. “It _was_ nice,” he agreed. “I’m glad we were able to become friends despite our initial differences.”

“Yeah…” Pleck trailed off, staring up at the droid earnestly. “Yeah, me too.”

Rodd, C-53 felt he was going to combust in that pure sunshine smile. He would fight wars and burn down cities to keep it safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic needed some levity after that last chapter. I'm hopefully gonna start wrapping this up soon - its already way longer than it was supposed to be. Thanks again for all the nice comments!
> 
> Thanks to various random poetry generators for helping me write the Zima scrolls. Special thanks to the guy who won first place in my high school literary anthology for poetry with that love poem C recited. It's a real ass poem written by a real human and I'm still salty it won even though its been like 6 years. It haunts my dreams at night.


	8. Pleck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pleck thinks on what he just learned.

Depending on where he looked, it was going to be over before it even began. 

After their initial disorganized start to AJ’s sixth birthday, the rest of the festivities had gone quite well for the CLINT. He had enjoyed his trip to the zoo, rolling excitedly between exhibits with his palms gleefully pressed against the glass like, well, like a six year old.

That was what Dar had told Pleck, anyway. He himself had missed most of the zoo trip on account of that bizarre vehicle train and his subsequent run in with Derf. He sat alone at the scroll-strewn table, watching AJ open his gifts from afar while he knotted and unknotted his own thoughts.

Feeling like an idiot wasn’t new to Pleck, but in this moment he felt particularly stupid. All he had just discovered about the Stuff and the Allwheat gnawed at him. Was this something every Zima already knew about, and he had just been floundering by himself in the Space, none the wiser? His eye fell to the paper tangle in front of him. None of his scrolls hinted at the existence of the religion’s other half - at least, as far as he could tell. Perhaps he just needed to give the texts another pass with this new lens.

He wanted to dismiss Derf’s words as nonsense. The old man never really had his shit together, but their latest encounter told Pleck that his mentor was really starting to lose it. It felt appropriate that the two of them had dressed up as clowns earlier. They were just a couple of clowns following a clown religion on a clown mission in a clown galaxy. It all was starting to feel like a big cosmic joke to Pleck.

As he washed the makeup off his face a few hours prior, however, he was compelled to consider the facts. Derf had never been wrong before. As outlandish and hare-brained the man’s guidance was, it was still mired in truths and half-truths. He had been right about Pleck’s destiny. He had been right about the Space. He had been right about the Emperor. Why wouldn’t his crazy old mentor be right about the Stuff?

Pleck watched Horsehat babbling to their father distractedly as he considered this. It was good, as always, to have Nermut aboard the ship. No matter what was going on between the crew’s manager and their captain, it never got in the way of Horsehat being a happy, well loved sentient. Dar’s child was a good kid, and Nermut was doing his best to be a good dad. Seeing the gleeful smile the two of them mirrored at each other made warmth swell in Pleck’s chest. 

He loved this chaotic, disjointed little family of misfits. He would love them every single day of his short tellurian life. He would do anything he could to keep them safe and happy.

A monumental task, considering the screaming black sun bearing down on them all. Derf had casually mentioned Pleck sacrificing himself to the being before he so unhelpfully went and died on him again and, well, it ate at Pleck. This was a notion that was all at once ridiculous and terrifying to him. To willingly face an entity that was chewing through planets like so much hard candy? It was undeniable suicide.

But he couldn’t ignore the horrible truth that had haunted him for the past six months. The Allwheat was his fault. _ Hi _ s fault. Pleck’s. He was the one who had singlehandedly jucked over the galaxy. It only made sense that he should be the one to un-juck it. 

He found his eye lingering on the frame of his best friend across the room. C-53 was patiently explaining his birthday gift to AJ - a handheld educational spelling game set - while the clone fiddled with powering the device on. Working with C-53 to silence the voice in his head had given Pleck a newfound sense of hope in these past few days. The droid’s gentle, reasonable tone grounded and reassured him when he felt his sanity was going to snap like brittle thread.

Pleck had begun to fantasize about the future, an impossible treat he allowed himself in the privacy of his mind. He entertained an idealized, romantic version of their reality, where Nermut and Dar made amends, Bargie was satisfied with her career, and nobody’s life was endangered by an evil, galaxy-wide threat. And who knows, maybe he could have finally told C-53 how he felt about him. Maybe the droid would have even returned his feelings. Maybe they could have been something.

It was a fantastical dream, rose-colored and improbable. But the hope at least had been his, and it had kept him afloat, for however short a time. Now, Pleck could feel that hope being crushed around him as he stared his newfound destiny in its ugly, screaming face. 

Pleck suddenly felt very sick and sad. His wants were simple, but so far out of reach. He shouldn’t be guilt-ridden over desiring happiness. Happiness should just be an intrinsic part of living and working with the people he loved. This was unfair, so infuriatingly unfair. To want something so basic and to feel he didn’t deserve it.

Throat tight, eye burning, Pleck scraped his chair back from the table and strode quickly out of the room. He didn’t need to start crying in the middle of AJ’s party. That would bring down the mood for everyone. 

“Pleck!” Dar’s voice called at his retreating back. “You okay, bud?”

Pleck managed a weak, “yeah, I’m just-” before choking on his words. He fled, taking his insurmountable failures with him.

\---

That night, when things had quieted down, the Allwheat’s voice started picking at Pleck’s mind like a scab, driving him out of his quarters in search of solace. Locating C-53 was starting to feel natural to him now. He padded silently through Bargie’s darkened hallways and sought out his soft, familiar blinking lights.

The droid was in the common area, as was his tendency, resting in a low power state. Pleck habitually collected one of the cushions off of the couch, placed it on the floor next to C-53’s frame, and settled down onto it. He leaned wearily against his friend for support. Still more comfortable than his phone booth of a room, he mused.

It was dark in the common area, the air thick with a resting silence that Pleck didn’t dare break. He sat with his ear pressed against C-53’s side, listening to the machinery dutifully working away within, even in dormancy. He focused on the gentle sound instead of the Allwheat’s taunting remarks until its terrible voice faded into the background of his mind. 

Pleck was just beginning to doze when he heard the resonant sound of C-53 booting up to consciousness. He blinked sleepily as the droid powered on, oriented himself, and noticed the tellurian curled up beside him on the floor. 

“Oh, how long have you been there?” C-53 asked, vocal modulator lagging in his delayed wakefulness. 

Pleck shrugged in a halfhearted way. “A while.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Pleck responded reflexively. “Things are just… y’know,” he trailed off lamely.

C-53’s head angled toward him. “I’m afraid I don’t know, actually. You seemed more shaken than normal today.”

The fact that he possessed a “normal” amount of shaken would make Pleck laugh if he didn’t feel so shitty. He reached to trace his knuckles across the surface of C-53’s arm, where it loomed protectively over his head. He knew the droid couldn’t feel it. This was just a nice, private thing he did for himself.

“I mean, I did just watch Old Derf die for the fourth time in a row,” Pleck explained into the empty silence. It wasn’t exactly what was bothering him, but of the many ways his mentor had kicked the bucket, this was probably the weirdest.

“Okay, yeah, I guess that was a little unnerving to witness,” C-53 admitted.

Pleck went on. “Did you know he talks to me too, sometimes? Like, sure, I’d rather hear from him than the Allwheat, but my brain isn’t free real estate, y’know?”

C-53 gave an affirmative, “Mmm. I can understand that.” There was a faint clicking sound from his processor before he continued. “I felt that way when the Federated Alliance installed their protocol on me against my will.”

Peck paused, connecting the dots. “I guess I hadn’t thought about it that way,” he responded quietly.

“It’s hard when you don’t know where the thoughts in your mind are coming from.”

He said it so matter-of-factly, but the words washed over Pleck and engulfed him. He felt deeply, intimately known. It chilled him as much as it excited him. Pleck sat there, next to his best friend, caught in the dangerous knowledge of being understood and yet completely certain that he was safe. He wanted to freeze time right there, to keep that moment to himself forever.

But time didn’t wait, and neither did destiny. His breath hitched in his throat.

C-53 didn’t miss the sound he made. “What’s really bothering you?” he asked.

Gradually, Pleck took out the bundle of thoughts he had been turning over in his head and showed them to the droid. He made sure to keep the part about entering the Allwheat to himself, but he laid out everything he’d learned about the Stuff, his frustrations with Derf, and how his destiny was far from over. C-53 took it all without judgment as the tellurian poured himself out messily between them. 

When he was done, he sagged heavily against the droid’s frame. He was so tired. He just wanted one good night’s sleep. 

C-53 was silent for a time, but Pleck could hear the uptick in his processing power as he thought things over. “Does this mean you’re going to have to spend six months training alone again?” he asked finally.

“I…” Pleck hesitated. “I don’t know. I don’t  _ want _ to, but...”

The time he had spent mastering the Space had been lonely but necessary, and he still regretted leaving his crewmates to flounder on their own in Holowood while he practiced swinging a stick around. Dar had done alright, but the rest of them had suffered in his absence. He wasn’t sure he could voluntarily do that to them again.

“Well, I don’t want you to, either,” C-53 said.

“You don’t?”

“No.” he responded. “I don’t like it when you disappear. Things just aren’t the same without you.”

Guilt flooded Pleck’s heart. “I’m going to disappear eventually,” he muttered, then immediately regretted it.

“What’s _ that _ supposed to mean?” C-53 asked as his fan kicked on.

“I mean like-” Pleck attempted to backpedal, but he ended up gushing out more words like an open wound. “Like I’m not gonna be around forever. You and Bargie are essentially immortal, Dar will live decades longer than I will-”

“Pleck-”

“And who knows how long a CLINT’s lifespan is. I’ve got what, sixty, seventy years if I’m lucky? I’m just not gonna be a part of your lives that much longer, okay?”

The astonishment in C-53’s voice was unmistakable. “Pleck, where is this coming from?” he asked.

“I don’t know, I don’t-” He choked on his words again, hot tears threatening to spill down his cheek. “I gotta go.”

He scrambled to his feet, ignoring C-53’s protests. He had to get out of here. This was all too much for him, to sort through what parts of himself to keep and what to give. 

“Pleck,  _ talk _ to me,” the droid’s voice echoed down the hall after him. “What did Derf say to you?”

He squeezed himself into his room and shut the door, crouching down to hug his knees against his chest. He should never have let C-53 see this side of him, let him get this close. Pleck couldn’t compartmentalize his feelings all neat and orderly like the droid could, and it was foolish to think he could share so much of himself while keeping certain parts hidden from him. He was tellurian, organic and messy, and all of C-53’s hard work to put Pleck back together was going to be wasted when the Allwheat ate him for breakfast. 

Pleck held himself and cried silently. Hoping had been a mistake. He wasn’t going to let it happen again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This podcast has so much unexplored angst potential and it feeds me. But also I bummed myself out writing this. I'm gonna go back to listening to 412 on loop now.


	9. C-53

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> C-53 overcomes the limitations of his frame and gets heckled by the rest of the crew.

Depending on – what was he doing, still looking? It was right there in front of him, plain as day.

C-53 shifted through boxes indiscriminately, scanners peeled for a very specific rectangle. Bargie’s file trees may be well organized, but her cargo hold wasn’t nearly as meticulously maintained. The crew’s fault, he allowed. He would have to come back and sort things out once he found what he was looking for. 

He hadn’t seen Pleck in the several days following their last conversation. The tellurian slunk into the kitchen for food only at night, when he was certain C-53 was powered down, and spent the rest of his time barricaded in his own room. They were back to square one, and the frustration C-53 felt probably was lending to how haphazardly he pawed through boxes of cargo.

How someone could be just down the hall and yet so very absent astounded him. He missed Pleck. Deeply. Limited as he was by the size of his frame, C-53 might as well be across the entire galaxy from him. 

Something had clearly rattled the tellurian to his core, enough to force him back into hiding, and C-53 had resolved to cross that yawning chasm between them. He waded through the cargo hold, wiring frayed, cube in flux. It was somewhere around here; he was sure Bargie hadn’t actually gotten rid of it.

Pleck’s absence somehow hurt worse this time around. Now, C-53 was intimately aware of how deeply the tellurian feared, how fiercely he loved. He knew how hard he fought every day just to keep his mind intact. Pleck had entrusted that part of himself to C-53. He was not about to let himself betray that trust.

Since they started working together, C-53 had rescued Pleck from an impressive array of dangers, but it was time now for the droid to tackle a new threat. He had to protect Pleck from… Pleck.

“Aha,” he said, scanners finally landing on what he was searching for.

A three foot tall frame, fitted with vents and a water tank. Never before used on account of it being, unfortunately, filled with sand. C-53 gingerly picked up the dehumidifier in his clamps and carried it back through the path he’d made in the sea of boxes. He felt slightly guilty for the thin trail of sand he left in his wake, but this was important. 

The pathways in his code were shivering like violin strings as he made his way to the bridge. In the days Pleck had been gone, he realized that separating how he felt about his friend into neat little compartments was as pointless as it was impossible. The exasperation of a coworker, the protective instinct of a guardian, the unbearable tenderness of… whatever they were becoming was inseparable. The emotions crossed and doubled over and tangled up in the binary designation for the tellurian’s five letter name. 

He was doing this for Pleck, but he was also doing this for himself. Dancing around the situation was only harming both of them, and C-53 was not prone to feeling this dumb very often. He and Pleck were just a pair of idiots orbiting one another, too afraid to touch. 

C-53 was done orbiting. He was ready to crash land.

Dar’s voice floated from the bridge as he approached. It sounded like they were reading aloud a passage from one of their leadership books. C-53 nudged the wide door open and ducked inside, the sandy humidifier held carefully before him.

“Captain Dar, I’m sorry to interrupt,” he began.

Dar looked up from their book. They were lounging in one of the pilot’s chairs, an unnecessary accessory that Bargie was fond of despite the fact that she piloted herself. Horsehat was seated in the chair opposite their parent, chin in hand, looking drowsy. Outside the windows, the galaxy whisked passively by.

“Oh, hey, C,” Dar said. “I was trying to decide whether I should read Horsehat a bedtime story or brush up on my captaining knowledge, and I thought, well, why not both?”

Horsehat themself did not seem to think that idea was a particularly good one. Their eyes were glazed over as they stared distractedly out the window. C-53 guessed that maybe they’d picked up a bit of AJ’s mindwiping technique during their time together.

“Ah, well, that will certainly put Horsehat to sleep,” C-53 reasoned, too caught up in his own thoughts to bother offering any constructive advice. “I actually have a bit of a favor to ask you.”

Dar’s big yellow eyes snagged on the machine in his hands for the first time. “Is that the shitty dehumidifier Nermut sent us like a year ago?”

“Along with that very suggestive bottle of sand, yes,” C-53 affirmed. He tilted the frame sideways, releasing a deluge of particulates onto the bridge floor. Dar raised their brows.

“I can clean that up,” C-53 said hurriedly.

“Oh, sure, you and what range of motion?” they asked, but their tone was more curious than irritated. “What’s the favor?”

There was no point in hesitating when the situation was this important, but C-53 found himself pausing, anyway.

“You’re not gonna get _ in _ that thing, are you?” Dar pressed. They rose from their chair to stand at their full height, an intimidating motion even to the much taller scanners in his loading frame. “What are you planning?” they asked.

“I… need to go talk to Pleck,” He admitted. His vocals took on a stronger edge, “And since he seems so keen on staying in his room, I figured I’d go to him.” He shook the dehumidifier. He and Dar watched it belch more sand onto the floor.

“…And you want me to put your cube in  _ that _ ?” The captain seemed skeptical. 

Across the room, Horsehat was nodding off with their face smushed onto an important looking keyboard.

“Well, I was hoping you’d help me clear out some of the sand, too,” C-53 said. “And, ah, maybe keep Bargie distracted so she’s not listening to our conversation. If it’s not too much to ask.”

Bargie, summoned by the sound of her own name, crackled onto the intercom. “You know I can hear you right now, right?”

“Respectfully, Bargie, this is precisely why I need you to be a little distracted for this,” C-53 said.

“Distracted from what? All the sand in my hallways? You realize you left like, a ridiculous amount of sand in my hallways.”

“He’s gonna go talk to Pleck,” Dar explained, their voice going melodic with intrigue. “In his room. Alone.”

“Oh, you’re finally confronting it, huh?” Bargie asked. 

Before C-53 could fire off a retort, Dar stepped heavily forward to take the dehumidifier from his clamps. “C, please, let me get that for you.” They took out the water reservoir and emptied it unceremoniously onto the floor. “You’re about to make me a lot of kroon.”

“I fail to see how-” His processor lagged as he connected the dots. “I’m sorry?”

“C-53, you are literally the last being on board to catch on,” Bargie explained. “I didn’t even tell Dar anything. They had it figured out months ago.”

“Yeah, the only person more clueless about this is Pleck himself,” Dar went on.

They slapped a heavy hand on the dehumidifier’s exterior. Sand was beginning to pool at their feet. Horsehat startled awake at the sound, looked around groggily, and went straight back to sleep on the control panel.

C-53 finally put the necessary words together for a response. “I don’t really appreciate that you’re taking bets on my relationship status.”

The captain paused their de-sanding to give him a serious look. “I don’t appreciate that you’ve taken this long to update your relationship status.”

“It’s not  _ just _ about that.”

“No,” Dar agreed, expression softening. “It’s not.” They tipped the machine idly in their hands. “But that’s a big part of it, right?”

They certainly weren’t wrong. Now that he’d had time to look, the more certain C-53 was that the connection between himself and the tellurian had always been there. Realizing Pleck’s feelings for him had tilted his perspective sideways, and he could finally really see it.

Every encounter between the two of them could be traced through his memory like a lifeline. Every excited smile Pleck flashed his way. Every reassuring touch in passing. Every moment of unshakeable loyalty they shared. 

It wasn’t a plunge into affection, but rather a gentle drowning, and Pleck had pulled C-53 deep beneath the surface with him.

“Alright, I think I got most of it,” Dar grunted, bending to set the dehumidifier down. They straightened and gave C-53 a brief once-over. “Are you  _ sure _ you want to go inside that thing?”

“If I had the choice, no,” C-53 replied, “but in terms of frames with any sort of mobility, my options are rather limited.”

They shrugged. “It’s your cube,” they reasoned. “You ready?”

“I am.”

The captain ejected his consciousness and everything went black. Sensation was limited in this state – he registered a faint feeling of being held and moved, but little else. It was always a somewhat disorienting process. Then his sensors fired off like so many synapses and he was in a body again. He adjusted to the change gradually as he powered on.

“Oh, this is… not ideal,” he muttered immediately.

Everything was small and cramped and full of sand. Dar had definitely shook out all they could, but C-53 could still feel microscopic grit in his machinery, trapped in the tiny spaces inside the frame. He reached into the dehumidifier’s limited capabilities one by one, testing out the treads, the scanners, the humidity sensors. It was a process made mildly uncomfortable by the sand, but it would do.

“You are so tiny,” Dar mused as they grinned down at him. “Are you gonna be okay in there?”

“I’ll be fine, Dar, thank you,” he assured them. His processor was juddering more over the upcoming confrontation than the state of his frame. “Before I go, may I ask what exactly you and Bargie are betting on?”

“That could ruin the outcome of the bet,” Dar said, a split second before Bargie blurted, “100 kroon says you make him cry.”

“ _ Barge _ ,” the captain groaned.

“Okay, I’m getting out of here,” he said in exasperation, throwing the machine into reverse.

“Go get him, C!” Dar called as he drove the dehumidifier out of the bridge. “Let us know how it goes!”

He didn’t bother to respond as he rolled down the hall, through the common area, and toward the ship’s living quarters. Sand ground in his gears as he went, lending to his anxiety. He was starting to think that this was perhaps a bad idea when he arrived outside Pleck’s door.

The hallway was dark and silent where he hesitated. He hadn’t even prepared what he was going to say to Pleck, so caught up as he was in his own thinking. But maybe it would be better this way. To speak spontaneously. To say exactly what he felt without pushing it all through three different filters. Pleck never watered down his thoughts. Why should he?

He didn’t have arms to knock, so he surged forward and rammed the dehumidifier against the door.

Silence.

“Pleck,” he said, bumping the door again. “It’s me. Open up. I just want to talk.”

His audio sensors picked up a shifting sound from within, and then the door cracked open. Pleck’s straw-colored eye peered out, at first gazing way too high before noticing the three-foot droid below his line of sight. He pulled the door open a little wider, surprise jerking up his eyebrows.

“C-53, what are you-” He stalled to look at him more closely. “Are you in a humidifier?”

“It’s a  _ de _ humidifier,” C-53 corrected on impulse. “It’s… not important. Can I come in?”

Pleck gazed mournfully down at him. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days, fatigue pulling under his eyes and at the corners of his mouth. His hair fell loose around his shoulders and his ruined eye socket was uncovered. C-53 watched him self-consciously pull forward a few blue locks to hide the injury. 

“There’s… not a lot of room in here,” he said after a pause.

“I know,” C-53 answered stubbornly.

“Are you okay?” Pleck asked. “You sound kind of…”

“Sandy?” he supplied. “That would be the sand.”

The ghost of a laugh tripped out of the tellurian. “The what?”

“I can explain later,” C-53 said hastily. “Can we  _ please _ talk? I don’t know how long Dar will cover for me.”

Pleck sighed, and the sound made C-53’s coding fray with concern. His friend considered him for a moment longer and finally stood aside to beckon the droid in.

Time to crash land. C-53 crossed the threshold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *claws my way through this fic to post it before 413 comes out* IT DOESNT CONTRADICT CANON IF I WROTE IT BEFORE CANON HAPPENS


	10. Pleck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confessions are made.

Pleck’s heart was an aching hunk of lead in his chest, but this was alleviated somewhat by being crammed inside a storage closet with his best friend. His best friend who was a dehumidifier filled with sand. The absurdity of it was not lost on him.

Despite his best efforts, this droid would not quit on him. C-53 had stubbornly planted himself in a barely functional frame just to fit down the hallway and come talk to Pleck. His stomach had done a backflip when he saw him waiting outside his door.

Once C-53 had maneuvered his frame into the corner of his room, Pleck slid down beside him to squeeze himself between the droid and the wall. It was a tight fit and neither of them were comfortable. He kept the light off. It felt safer that way.

The dehumidifier hummed in a grainy sort of way beside him, and Pleck could feel the subtle vibration against his shoulder. “That doesn’t sound good,” he said.

“Yeah, well,” C-53 answered wryly. “It was kind of the only frame we had that would fit in here.”

Pleck flinched. “I’m sorry.”

“For what, getting shafted on bedroom options?” C-53 responded hotly. Then his voice lost its edge. “Sorry. I just… I miss you, okay?”

“I miss you, too,” Pleck said, softly, genuinely. He missed C-53 more than anything. Being away from him, after giving over so much of himself, felt like removing a limb.

“Then why are you hiding?” his friend asked. “Can we talk about it?”

Pleck tensed at the idea of divulging his impending doom to the droid beside him, but C-53 spoke up again before he could even begin to fabricate an excuse.

“Don’t think you can run away this time,” he said. “I’ll follow you all over Bargie and run into your knees. We’ll both hate it.”

Pleck chuckled halfheartedly at the threat. He kneaded the heel of his palm into his good eye and heaved a sigh.

“C-53, listen,” he began, “I’m… glad you came after me. Seriously, but,” he pressed his hand into his eye harder, watching starbursts of light pop behind his eyelid. “I  _ really _ don’t wanna tell you about this.”

“Why?” C-53 asked. He sounded somewhat hurt, and it sent a pang through Pleck’s chest.

“Because-” he dropped his hand into his lap. “It’s – you’re gonna be mad.”

“I’m already mad.”

“I’m sorry,” Pleck repeated forlornly.

He pulled his legs up against his chest and crossed his arms over his knees. They were both silent. The lights on C-53’s control panel glowed softly in the darkness and Pleck found himself staring, transfixed, at their blinking pattern. He really was beautiful in every frame. Pleck wondered if the droid was aware of this, if it was something he even thought about.

Rodd, he missed him. His resolve was weak and his heart was hurting. C-53 had already taken every burden Pleck put on him without judgment, so he finally broke down and gave him one more.

“Derf told me that to defeat the Allwheat I need to go inside it,” he said. “And that I’ll probably die in the process.”

There. It was out. He buried his face in his arms.

A loud, mechanical grating sound came from within C-53’s frame. “Go  _ inside _ it?” he echoed, vocal modulator climbing in volume.

“After I master the Stuff, yeah,” Pleck clarified, his response muffled by the fabric of his robe.

“After you – Pleck, are you serious?”

“I mean-”

“No,” the droid cut him off. Pleck could feel the surface of the dehumidifier heating up against his shoulder. “No, you can’t possibly think this is a good idea.”

“I  _ don’t _ think it’s a good idea,” he answered, raising his head to shoot C-53 a defensive look. “I think it’s my only idea.”

“It’s not your only idea, it’s Derf’s only idea. There’s a big difference there.”

“Derf has never been wrong before!”

“Oh, I can think of a pretty long list of times Derf has been wrong.” There was acid in C-53’s voice. “What the juck is your problem? You think we’re just going to let you throw yourself into a black hole?”

“If it means saving the galaxy, yes!” Pleck shot back.

“No,” the droid repeated stubbornly. “Whether something like that saves the galaxy or not doesn’t matter. This isn’t all on you.”

“Yes, it is.” Pleck insisted.

“ _ Why _ ?”

“Because it’s my fault!” Pleck’s voice broke as the words ripped violently out of him. His throat locked and his eye welled up. This time, he didn’t bother holding back his tears. “It’s my fault,” he choked out quietly. “It’s my fault everything’s like this. It has to be me.”

C-53 made a deep, low hum that vibrated his whole frame. Pleck wasn’t sure what it meant. He was so warm where he sat next to him – he hoped the conversation wouldn’t make him overheat.

“Listen, I’m sorry,” Pleck said, tears still slipping down his cheek. “I know you put a lot of effort into helping me, but I have to do this. I don’t wanna waste your time anymore if I’m just gonna end up dying in a few months.”

When C-53 spoke, his voice was harsh with emotion. “Pleck, you idiot,” he ground out. “Did it ever occur to you that I spent all that time with you because I like you?”

Pleck blinked, momentarily derailed from his pity party. “Well, sure you do, you’re my best friend,” he said, a little lost.

“Not,” the droid sighed, “like that.” He sounded pained.

“Oh.” He was quiet for a moment. Then his brain caught up to his ears, and he was suddenly blindsided by shock. “Wait,  _ really _ ?”

“Yeah, now he gets it.”

“You-” Pleck flushed from head to toe, feeling like Bargie was doing somersaults in space, tilting the floor beneath him. A giddy, bewildered laugh hiccupped out of him. All this time he’d spent pining for his best friend, and he actually returned his feelings? It sounded impossible, like the droid had taken a daydream out of Pleck’s head and made it real. “You really – I –  _ Me _ ?”

“Yes, you.” Fondness bled into C-53’s voice. It sounded the same way it always did when they shared quiet moments together. Pleck couldn’t believe he had never picked up on it.

He squirmed sideways so he could face C-53 better. In the limited space, he had to curl his body slightly around the dehumidifier to make the position work. His frame was still very warm, though now he wasn’t sure if it was from residual frustration or simply from being next to Pleck, who positively felt like a radiator.

“But I’m me,” he said softly. He found it hard to grasp that someone so wonderful could have feelings for someone like him. Pleck Decksetter. Tellurian disaster. 

“I am very aware of this,” C-53 acknowledged. He sounded amused now. “Are there any other obvious things you’d like to point out?”

Pleck leaned in to rest his forehead against his frame. “Well, I mean,” he inhaled, rallying himself. “I kinda like you, too.”

It was still hard to get out, even with the safety net of C-53’s affection to leap into. His fingertips were trembling. He pressed his hands against his frame to steady them. “Actually, y’know what? No. I like you a  _ lot _ ,” he spilled breathlessly. “Like, a ridiculous amount.”

“I know.” C-53 answered gently.

He raised his head, surprised. “You do?”

“The whole crew knows, apparently.”

Pleck started laughing, embarrassed at how transparent he was. “Seriously?”

“Yes, I was incredibly delayed in realizing my feelings, but Dar and Bargie have seen this coming for a very long time.”

“Oh my Rodd.” Pleck shook his head, still smiling slightly. “I mean, I guess that makes sense. I’ve kinda been crushing on you for a long time.”

C-53’s processor hummed curiously. “How long?”

“Oh,” he blushed, if possible, even harder. “Since uh, back when you had your restraining bolt off for the first time, I think?”

Now C-53 was the one who was surprised. The incredulous trill in his voice was something that always made Pleck’s stomach flutter when he heard it. “ _ That _ was when you realized?” he asked. “I was relentlessly hostile to you.”

“It was cute,” Pleck laughed.

“Was not,” C-53 argued. “I belittled you mercilessly.”

“It was really cute,” he insisted.

He felt light and happy, like his heart was a tender bird finally freed from a cage. It was a relief to be able to say everything aloud. To share every affectionate thought that crossed his mind with the droid, finally,  _ finally _ , after all this time. His palms were still shaking.

“Can you feel my hands right now?” he asked.

A short pause as C-53 analyzed his surroundings. “Unfortunately, I can only sense the moisture in the room,” he answered. “You’ve expelled a great deal of vapor while talking and you seem… rather sweaty.”

“Gross,” Pleck wrinkled his nose, but he was grinning.

“Not exactly the most romantic way this encounter could have gone,” the droid agreed. 

Pleck settled in closer anyway, tracing the edges of C-53’s frame with light fingertips. He still couldn’t believe this was real. He wanted to hold him and hold him and hold him and never let go. He didn’t even care if his legs fell asleep, tucked against him as they were.

“Do you think you’ll reconsider killing yourself for the greater good?” C-53 broke the silence carefully. 

His hand stilled, buoyant mood reeling back in. “I mean,” he hesitated. “If we can find another way, maybe…”

C-53 made that humming sound deep in his frame. It vibrated against him pleasantly. “We really need to work on your martyr complex,” he said.

“I don’t have a martyr complex,” Pleck replied defensively, but there was no edge to his words. He was feeling too soft to bother arguing. 

“Sure,” C-53 went on. “Next time we run a heist, try _ not _ sacrificing yourself so the crew can escape. Then we’ll talk.”

He laughed weakly. “Okay, that’s- yeah, you got me there.”

Pleck would try, though. He would try for the droid beside him. Maybe there was another way. If there existed a chance to stay with C-53, he could fight and reach and claw for it.

“We all miss you,” C-53 continued. “Are you ready to go back out there? I’ll come with you.”

Pleck missed the crew, too. He felt fragile, though, like the gentlest breeze could break him. His heart was raw and sore as he held his best friend in the dark. 

“Not yet,” he answered. “Soon, but - well, right now, I just want to stay here. With you. If you want?”

C-53 met him with the same constant grace he always reserved just for him. “Of course.”

And stay he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done!!! Holy shit, what was supposed to be a one shot turned into quite a long ass fic. Thank you everyone for the encouragement; Imma boutta go pass out now. 
> 
> Edit: woof now that it’s not 1 in the morning I can actually think. Yall KNOW Bargie broadcast the whole conversation to the bridge during this exchange. And afterwards Pleck helps sweep all the sand up bc he’s a good and nice boy.
> 
> I will definitely post more fic about these two in the future - their psyches are so fun to explore. No matter what happens in canon they will always be in love in my heart.

**Author's Note:**

> I made an ao3 account just to post this; I've never put fanfiction on the internet before and this is my first piece I feel confident enough to share so please be gentle. I didn’t think I’d end up shipping a whiteman jedi ripoff and a droid who is essentially a forklift in an improv comedy podcast but here the fuck I am I guess.


End file.
